


Negated Universe Misadventures

by DyingRabbit



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Gen, Humor, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyingRabbit/pseuds/DyingRabbit
Summary: The untold tales of Homura Akemi's timeline experimentation prior to the entire universe being rewritten by Madoka Kaname. I'll be upfront with you. One of the defining features of this writing style is that Homura swears a lot. It's marginally witty at times.





	1. Eco Round

**(Attempt #26)**

 

I'm not gonna say I saw it coming, because that would be vain of me, but I sure as hell knew something was bound to get fucked up this time.

Trying to take down Walpurgisnacht at less than full strength was already pushing it. If Sayaka hadn't gone and blown herself up earlier this would have been a much more feasible operation, but our numbers disadvantage notwithstanding, we were still fucking it up. Kyouko was way out of position, getting distracted by the adds, and Mami couldn't seem to land a single fucking shot to save her life. I was clearly the only person who could get anything done. Unfortunately even I can't carry all the time so everybody died again.

Fuck this shit.

()~~()

Upon reset I awoke to a familiar ceiling. At this juncture, I considered a great many things. I had almost lost count of how many times I'd started over by giving this little buckler a spin and all of my runs were becoming confused and hazy. Twenty-five times now I had rushed headlong into this damned loop and each new attempt yielded nothing.

Was I worn out? Certainly. It's no fun seeing your efforts go unrewarded. It's another thing entirely for them to fucking zap out of existence.

Did I regret putting myself up to this? Not quite. Saving Madoka was still priority number one and it wouldn't do any fucking good for anyone if I started feeling bad for myself now.

What was clear was that nothing seemed to be working. It always ended in Madoka dying or turning into a witch. It was one of the universal constants of the timeline. Another thing that was oddly prevalent was Mami dying very early. It wasn't always the same perpetrator, but the cause of death was almost invariably decapitation. There were a surprising number of ways, it turned out, for Mami to lose her head along the course of events. So noticeable was this phenomenon that on the last occasion I actually chuckled quietly to myself.

But in any event, what I needed right now was to strategize. Throwing myself at this brick wall wasn't working so I needed to adapt in order to succeed. What did that entail? In order to beat this time loop, I needed to know it from front to back. I needed to find out what made it tick and precisely how to exploit it. For starters, I needed a control run.

()~~()

To be fair, I also needed a break. This shit was getting fucking exhausting and I was hardly up to jumping right back in again. So there's two dead birds.

Step one was getting money, a practice I had perfected several resets ago. The ability to stop time was a pretty fucking hard counter to any security system designed by man, so I won't bore you with the trivial details. In essence, I robbed a few banks. I stopped feeling bad about it a while ago. The world ended if I fucked this up so I rightfully deserved to have any and all resources at my disposal.

Step two was having a spa day. This was probably the most fucking critical part of the plan so I paid special attention to making sure it was done properly. This entailed no expenses being spared. Importantly, it meant going to the most expensive spa in Mitakihara City, a super classy looking joint called "Subarashi Onsen".

I gave a cursory scan to the brochure in the lobby and quietly cackled, knowing that each and every feature advertised was getting purchased. Even if some of them were mutually exclusive. I didn't give a damn if I had to be there all day, nothing was fucking sacred.

As it happened, the spa's accommodations were somewhat exhaustive and I did, in fact, end up spending all day there, but the lost day was something of a necessary sacrifice to ensure the rest of the plan went smoothly. Who knows how catastrophic a failure may have arisen if this first step hadn't been executed correctly. It made me shudder just thinking about it. Frightening shit, no doubt.

()~~()

Alright, step three was pretty fucking boring and tedious but it was technically required according to my outline. I just needed to watch everyone for a while. I wasn't allowed to do anything really. This run was all about getting a solid baseline so I could then semi-directly measure the cause and effect of my actions.

It also meant taking a shit ton of notes. That was fine, as I was a pretty ace note taker, but it also sucked pretty bad because all of my calculations would be based on them and the level of abstraction that would be required of me at the drop of a hat wasn't particularly conducive to easily resolvable data points. I needed to be everywhere, at all times, making systematically unfounded assumptions, and I needed to be correct every time. I needed to be almost entirely omniscient for this to work even slightly. Fortunately, my handy little time travel ability made this prerequisite a bit less damning.

Stage one, I suppose, was my classroom introduction. Since I had no intention of reverting to the helpless pleb I had been prior to meeting Madoka for the first time, I felt no desire to alter my current appearance. Still, Madoka recently seemed to recognize me at first sight due to dreaming about me in the previous timeline. So I did need to change something. The glasses would have to do.

So instead of walking in like the drop-dead gorgeous yet undeniably badass goddess I had been known as for the past several time loops, I settled for walking in as a slightly less gorgeous and badass yet very studious looking goddess. The students were impressed, as they always were.

This was generally the only fun part of the whole process. At one point or another fighting the witches was pretty fun, but now that I knew all their moves it was getting dull. The only thing that I found pleasing anymore was the complete adoration I received from these poor impressionable middle schoolers. I put an ungodly amount of effort towards making these kids comment on my hair. Eventually, it paid off. I now consistently get one or two girls asking me what shampoo I use. It's disgusting but dangerously addictive.

This time, I unfortunately wouldn't get to show off quite as much for fear of drawing too much attention to myself. This meant no more breaking the pole vaulting prefectural record or absolutely killing my math professor's whiteboard problems. But like hell was I gonna drop my fabulous hair. Fuck my spreadsheets. If my curtain of raven black locks was going to significantly alter the timeline then god dammit so be it. After writing my name on the board and wishing everyone a good year I assumed my seat and proceeded to begin note taking.

Madoka, for her part, did steal a few glances in my direction after I sat down. This was to be expected, as I'm difficult to not stare at, but additionally, she had probably ID'd me from her dream. It couldn't really be helped. I could have worn a mask or gotten plastic surgery, but those ideas could just as easily go fuck themselves. At least I didn't look exactly like I probably did in the dream. I had the bright red glasses for one. I also had put a concerted effort towards smiling a little bit to hide the stone cold bitch stomper within. That and I made a point not to make eye contact with Madoka. With any luck, she'd think it was all in her head.

After a bit, she seemed to settle down and focus on the lecture. When break came, A few students came to welcome me to the class. I graciously answered each of their questions with poise and class, even the bullshit ones. Then someone asked about the shampoo. I still get a little elated every time, so I launched into my spiel.

"Actually, that's an interesting question. There was a brand that I used to use called-" I was cut off by a really obscenely asinine ringtone.

"Oh. Sorry, Akemi-san. I've gotta take this."

Fucking hell. I couldn't have even one moment of mild satisfaction it seemed. Taking advantage of the lull, Madoka approached me with a timid smile.

"E - excuse me it's Akemi-san, right?" She meekly inquired.

Okay, this was game time. No margin for fuck-ups here. We were gonna play this real cool but also a little guarded.

I nodded while saying, "Yep, that's my name. And you?"

Fucking nailed it. Madoka looked a little relieved that I came across as a normal person and proceeded to introduce herself.

"I'm Madoka Kaname, nice to meet you." We politely shook hands.

This time I didn't ask her to take me to the nurse's office. I went and ate lunch alone from a strategic perch. Not a whole lot of shit was poised to happen at school but vigilance was never a bad thing. Right now the only pieces on the board were Madoka herself and that Sayaka bitch. Things don't really get interesting until after school when they visit that music store.

()~~()

Stage two was the all-important encounter with Kyubey and Mami at the music store. This is generally where I initially make a major impact on the timeline. So this time I anticipated the meeting to play out much differently.

Much to my chagrin, it didn't really. Generally, I would rush in here, shoot up Kyubey, and narrowly avoid a confrontation with Mami before peeling out. Now that I thought about it I don't really do much here. This time Kyubey lured Madoka and Sayaka into the witch's labyrinth whilst feigning being under duress.

Fucking bastard.

This forced Mami into rescuing them and revealing her magical abilities. Mami then takes them to her apartment where she talks about the pros and cons of the whole business. Almost exactly the same except no intervention from me. In addition, I hadn't blown my cover or given the others a bad impression of myself, so this was already an improvement. That was going in the notebook for sure.

They spent the next couple of days casually tracking down familiars and dispatching them with no trouble. Meanwhile, Sayaka had been granted that super gaudy club that she used to beat the shit out of adds. Madoka whiled away thinking about what she might wanna wish for and precisely how fucking pink and frilly her dress was gonna be. Things were progressing fairly nominally.

Soon they ought to face off against Charlotte and Mami will lose her fucking head. I imagine at this point, Sayaka and Madoka will both insta-contract with Kyubey and probably end up killing the shit out of Charlotte. I'm actually not sure what will happen after that. It really depends on how Sayaka takes the whole thing and how she reacts to Kyouko when she arrives. If they end up killing each other I won't have the man advantage I need to take out big ole' Walpy. But I'm getting ahead of myself now.

()~~()

Stage three began with Madoka and Sayaka visiting that crippled violin player Kyousuke who Sayaka kinda dug for some reason. After leaving the hospital, they encountered the grief seed conspicuously sticking out of the wall.

Sayaka, the martyr that she is, usually volunteers to stay behind and camp the seed while Madoka goes and fetches Mami from her apartment. Except they both had their phones this time so they just called her up and she was there in a couple minutes.

I must have missed something because I'm not certain how my involvement makes these girls any less aware of their mobile devices, but at least I didn't have to hide in this bush any longer than was absolutely necessary. When Mami arrived, I sneakily followed everyone inside.

For what it's worth, a couple times I've actually managed to convince Mami that something was off with this particular witch. My success rate at keeping her alive through this portion is, nonetheless, lower than satisfactory. Nicer folks might call her free-willed, but the skeptics, the cynics, and the real deal pundits would just call her a fucking idiot. I, being all three of those things, had just about had it with Mami and her gung-ho attitude. It gave me a grim sense of satisfaction knowing she wouldn't be acting so feckless when she no longer had a head.

I silently cursed myself, though, for counting Mami out so quickly. After all, it's not like it was in my best interest if she bit the dust here. If it satisfied my personal vendetta for her to fail utterly without my assistance, that was neither here nor there. That being said, It didn't earn me any fucking brownie points to be optimistic and, given her past performance, objectivity implied a certain degree of pessimism at this stage.

The initiates proceeded into the labyrinth with something of a terrified amusement. Sure, they'd been around the block by now but It would be quite the hyperbole to assert that this particular block was in any sense adequate preparation for what they now faced. So it was good that they were frightened.

Mami, on the other hand, was practically skipping the entire time. Madoka had just told her that she had resolved to join the ranks as a magical girl. At that moment, all Mami's general misgivings about going it alone had subsided in a flood of tears and a shocking number of "Fuckin' A!" utterances. There were clearly some underlying mental issues here so it warranted taking a note.

Now, with the wind at their backs, they sailed into Charlotte's main chamber to do battle.

()~~()

I've seen this fight play out several times by now. Generally speaking, it doesn't go so well when I'm not involved at first. When Mami lets me assist her, I fuck Charlotte up so fast it makes her head spin. Everyone thinks I'm really cool after that, even if they thought I was a cold hearted bitch before. When Mami doesn't let me assist her, nine times out of ten she doesn't make it out alive.

On a few occasions, one or both of her shadowers have made contracts prior to the fight so it goes much more smoothly even when I'm not there. In all other cases, when I'm not present, Mami gets a big head about herself only to have it swiftly emancipated from the rest of her body. To put it bluntly, I expected to see a headless Mami with near certainty in the near future.

What did end up happening was a bit disappointing. Mami engaged her target with a blistering hail of musket fire for several seconds, as usual. Charlotte responded by doing pretty much nothing for a while, as usual. Mami pinned her against the far wall and initiated her big flashy finishing move whilst shouting "Tiro Finale!".

Nobody else had a finishing move. How vain of her.

After believing the kill was confirmed, Mami dropped her guard for a second. Charlotte sprung out of her doll form straight at Mami, opened her jaw wide open and started munching on the poor middle schooler's head. All of this was expected. I took no notes on this.

What wasn't expected was what happened next. Charlotte quickly finished working on Mami, or decided she'd better go and secure a couple more frags, and focused her attention on Madoka and Sayaka. Kyubey, always on the ball, immediately petitioned them to make contracts.

"Quickly! Make a wish so I can turn you into magical girls!". Sayaka, with an uncharacteristically clear head, instantly wished for Kyousuke's arm to be healed. The transformation process began at once. Madoka couldn't fucking pull herself together and just stared wide-eyed at Mami's dismembered corpse.

"Now you, Madoka! There's no time! What is your wish?" Demanded Kyubey. Madoka looked helplessly between Kyubey and Mami's body. Then, wiping away her tears, she managed to eke out a few words.

"Uh, I'd like a really big cake-" In that instant Charlotte swung her head about, slamming into Madoka's fragile frame, and sending her flying into the wall. She impacted with a sickening crunch.

Shit. That wasn't supposed to happen.

It did give credence to my claim that they'd be dead without my help. I guess I hadn't fully believed myself though.

A cake. She wished for a fucking cake. Damn, now I wanted a cake. I made a note of these things.

That aside, It would have been something of an understatement to say that Sayaka was somewhat galvanized at this point. Her eyes were glazed over and a miasma of unadulterated hate oozed from her every pore. With a scream too ungodly for hell, she streaked through the air to assail her nemesis.

If I hadn't just watched Madoka get fucking demolished, which was never easy, I'd have probably been a bit turned on by the whole display.

Sayaka slammed into Charlotte, blade first, driving her flailing, tube-like body straight to the ground. Rising quickly, she began mercilessly hacking at the witch's face. Unfathomable amounts of blood and gore gushed from each wound coating the once cute blue outfit Sayaka was wearing. She began syncopating expletives with each slash of her sword.

"YOU—PIECE OF—SHIT—FUCKING—BITCH—CUNT—MOTHER—FUCKER!"

Holy shit this was hot. Her manic carvings had left her victim mangled and unrecognizable. With a last cry of utter despair, Sayaka drove her blade straight through Charlotte's face.

There was a horrific screech that reverberated off the walls. It was so immediately deafening that I dropped my notebook to cover my ears. But Sayaka remained motionless, her hands resting on the hilt of her sword which was still deeply embedded in the flesh of her enemy, and her head downcast. The screech increased in frequency until it was no longer audible. Then Charlotte exploded.

()~~()

The labyrinth quickly dissipated, leaving only Sayaka, Madoka, and I in front of the hospital. Madoka was strewn about in a very unnatural manner. I could tell pretty easily that she was toast. Looked like almost every bone in her body was broken and Sayaka could tell that pretty easily too.

She crawled over to her friend and gingerly pulled her body up onto her lap. It seemed like she'd spent her allotted screaming budget in the preceding encounter and now all she could do was quietly sob. So she did. Her soul gem turned from bright blue to a depressing shade of navy.

Kyubey waited closely by in anticipation, no doubt upset that his big catch had all but gone to waste but, regardless, happy with the quick turnover of his most recent contractee.

Alright then. I quickly summarized the most important details of this engagement in my notebook: Mami dies. Madoka dies. Sayaka goes off on Charlotte. It's really badass and sexy. Charlotte is terminated. Sayaka despairs and turns into a witch. Good. Now I was calling it. The timeline was dead.

Facing no repercussions from exposing myself, I emerged from the bush that was my hiding spot and pulled a Desert Eagle out of my buckler. There was really no need for this to go any further so I decided to give Sayaka the old Of Mice and Men treatment, as it was the most merciful way to do this.

She either didn't hear me walking up behind her, or didn't care. I glanced over at Kyubey, who had just now noticed me, gave him the finger, and shot Sayaka in the back of the head.

No grief seeds for you, motherfucker.

Before resetting, I decided I'd indulge myself one last time. I really wanted some cake. Unfortunately, it was rather impossible to get rid of Kyubey after the show I'd given him earlier. Even after destroying his body he kept coming back to bug me with useless questions, mostly pertaining to who the hell I was and what I knew about witches and shit. Only after sitting down in a café and acquiring my cake did I begin to humor him.

"I'm basically your worst nightmare," I said, taking a bite of vanilla frosted angel food. "I can do this shit as many times as I fucking want to and you can't stop me." I was speaking a little unduly loud and the nearby patrons were giving me confused glances.

"I wouldn't be so confident, Akemi Homura-san," the Incubator countered, "It is a certainty that you will eventually see the futility of this endless cycle and succumb to despair."

Okay, I'll give this monster credit. He did make a good point. It was totally possible that if I didn't find a route with a good ending soon I was going to start losing it. But I could delay that. I just needed to make sure to pace myself. That's what this run was all about anyway. At some point, I was going to have to look at myself in the mirror and ask what I'd be willing to settle for, or if I'm willing to settle at all. What constituted a good ending, and if that was achievable, but that was for some other time.

I put the rest of the cake into a to-go box that the waitress had given me and awkwardly tried to shove the box into my magic bottomless storage unit. Meanwhile, Kyubey gazed at me with a look of bemused contentment or maybe seething angst. I couldn't really tell. He kinda just looked like a pedophile or a serial killer to me so It was tough to gauge his demeanor at any given time. In any event, I'm sure he thought he'd gotten to me with that last jab. Which he had, sort of, but fuck him, so what?

"Perhaps you're already losing hope, Akemi Homura-san." He said evilly.

I'd had enough of him. I'd like to say what I did next was in one smooth motion but If I'm being honest with myself it certainly didn't look all that practiced. That is, it was choppy as all hell.

First, I heroically jammed the rest of the cake box into my shield. Next, I grabbed some cash and left an equitable tip for the nice lady who had served me. Lastly, I grabbed Kyubey by the throat, threw him on the floor, and shouted, "AM NOT! FUCK YOU!" before emptying my Deagle magazine into his chest.

Then I reset.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	2. Proof of Concept: Part One

**(Attempt #27)**

 

As far as I was concerned, there were no more than two ultimate goals that needed to be fulfilled to constitute a successful run.

Number one, Madoka needed to survive.

Number two, Madoka could not be allowed to contract with Kyubey.

What I continually found, however, was that pursuing these goals at the expense of everything else led to an insurmountable catch-22 when it came to defeating Walpurgisnacht. Simply put, without the aid of the other girls, it became impossible to defeat the mega-witch unless Madoka transformed. If she didn't, she died, or I gave up and reset. If she did, she one-hit Walpurgisnacht and then succumbed to despair, or I mercy killed her. Failure all the way around.

So although my ground rules remained constant, it became necessary to consider the implications of my fundamentals. Id est, I needed to also ensure the safety and cooperation of the other three magical girls.

The game was thus that I needed to assist Mami in eliminating Charlotte without getting on her bad side, either prevent Sayaka from contracting in the first place or stop her from free falling into despair if she does, and lastly to rein in Kyouko so that she doesn't throw a wrench into the group's synergy. All this was much easier said than done, but it looked really neat as a bullet-pointed list in my notebook.

()~~()

Alright, I'll admit it. The notebook had so far served very little utility beyond being a really cute prop, but God damn it, I was having a fucking blast organizing this thing.

It was a leather bound journal with a little buckle on it. When I first saw it on display at a stationary store I was visiting for no particular reason, and I stress that it was for no fucking particular reason, I realized it was probably incredibly vital in ensuring Madoka's survival.

It would be pure conjecture, of course, to assert that it was while I stood there in the stationary store staring at the journal for several minutes that I concocted the entire plan for performing a control run and taking detailed notes in THAT journal. It would be pure conjecture, yes, and thus an invalid basis for making any conclusions about my reasoning process. This was due in large part to a true god-out-of-the-machine-tier lifesaver in that the argument "No, I totally planned that out earlier. The notebook was auxiliary, not instrumental, to the plan's inception" was completely and utterly unfalsifiable.

Anyway, I hadn't decided yet if I was going to go with a perfectly neat and organized look, such that someone could read it and know exactly what I was talking about, or if I should go with a cluttered mad scientist's sprawl of random figures and arcane passages which held varying levels of important information, such that anyone who picked it up would think I was insane but brilliant. Undeniably brilliant.

So far it looked pretty sparse because the last run ended, quite unfortunately, a bit prematurely. But that would change soon, I was sure.

()~~()

This next run would be more of a proof of concept run in that I would focus on gauging the feasibility of performing the actions specified in my to-do list.

Item number one was making sure Mami didn't go and get herself killed this time in Charlotte's lair. This required a bit of preliminary PR shit so that Mami and the gang trusted me enough to bring me along.

The most success I've had with that in the past came when I was a total shit-tier magical girl with glasses and a golf club. The better part of their trust was probably transmuted from an abject sense of pity they felt for me, as I could hardly beat up a defenseless metal drum much less anything more sentient than, say, a defenseless metal drum.

There wasn't anything wrong with sticking to what works, so I decided to play the powerless moe fountain with a heart condition to get on Mami's good side. This unfortunately meant completely forfeiting my cool factor. It meant I was sticking with the glasses, it meant I had to act all shy and demure about everything, and it meant I had to bring back the God damned twin tail braids. The good news was that I was merely testing a limiting case to prove that saving Mami was even feasible. In the future, I'd probably be able to fine tune this so that I wouldn't have to hate myself in order to clear this stage, but for now, we were just looking for guarantees.

When I introduced myself in class I purposefully averted my eyes from all the other students and clutched my bag as though it were a life raft. As an additional touch, I briefly looked up and locked eyes with Madoka for a fraction of a second before quickly looking back at the ground.

Oh, fuck yeah. I went there.

See, it seemed like an accident, but now Madoka was unwittingly invested because she felt guilty for staring at me. I almost felt sorry for pulling out such decrepit stops in this instance because she clearly stood no fucking chance against my masterful psychological attacks.

When break came, I made a big show out of feeling light-headed and informed Saotome-sensei. She directed Madoka, the nurse's assistant, to guide me to the nurse's office. So far this was playing out much like the original timeline. It was almost nostalgic.

()~~()

Madoka was fairly timid around people she'd just met and I was no exception. However, since I'd worked so hard to present myself as socially extinct, she seemed to place me on a lower rung than herself and attempted to get me to open up.

She wasn't generally an excellent active listener, though she clearly tried very hard. To be blunt, I'm not sure she was capable of grasping the concept of a leading question.

"So you just transferred, huh?" She redundantly mused as we walked down the hallway.

"Um, yes," I said nervously, really putting on the gas, "I-I've been the hospital for a long time, you see..."

A critically malfunctioning abacus could have told you what the next topic of conversation ought to have been, but Madoka just said, "Oh." We spent most of the walk in silence.

Madoka wasn't exactly opening up a window for conversation but, since it was necessary to provide her with some sort of self-esteem boost here, I eventually broke down and just inserted an "I think you're a really strong person" without any context.

()~~()

Without my intervening, Madoka and Sayaka eventually met up with Mami and excitedly began their journeys as magical girls in training. When they eventually tracked Gertrud down, I just so happened to show up at the exact same time. Of course, I'd had no idea Mami was also a magical girl. More importantly, I was more than happy to share in the glory of battle with the three of them. All with an innocent unassuming smile to top it off. Sayaka seemed to be a bit suspicious about the remarkable coincidence, as she would be, but the other two were fucking putty in my hands.

Game, set, match.

I let Mami handle Gertrud herself. I mean, I certainly pretended to help out, but for the most part, I kept my badass arsenal on the down low. No reason to draw any undue attention to myself just yet. Plus, this particular fight is about as cool as Mami ever gets to look, so it would be a bit cruel to take this away from her just because.

And she looked great. Really, she did. She was in top form. The little move where she casually starts sipping her tea after demolishing the witch was certainly quite cheeky, but I was mostly just jealous that I couldn't use that now without catching some major shit.

In any event, I was totally part of the gang now. Public relations had been a resounding success. Now it was time to keep miss Tomoe from losing her head up her ass.

()~~()

I hadn't given much thought to it yet, but action item number two was going to be pretty fucking difficult. Taking this line with Mami, in promoting a positive image of magical girls in general, made it all but certain that at least Sayaka would want to make a contract with Kyubey.

In some ways, Mami dying made it a lot easier to keep the other two from contracting. In the same way, for instance, making a show of accidentally shooting someone in the head made a compelling argument for safe gun handling practices. But it also meant I was down a man for no other reason than to delay what had consistently proved to be an inevitability. That being Madoka and Sayaka contracting.

I'd need to put some serious effort into discouraging the idea without coming across as a total hypocritical bitch. It would be a hard fucking line to walk but I had a few tricks up my sleeve. Again, I was getting ahead of myself.

()~~()

I wasn't nearly close enough to Sayaka to get in on her little visits to that Kyousuke kid, so in order to set myself up to help fight Charlotte, I needed to come up with some bullshit reason to go visit Mami prior to the discovery of the grief seed. I didn't regard this task with very high importance so it felt like I wasted a shit ton of time on it.

In hindsight, I clearly didn't spend nearly fucking long enough preparing for this visit. We'd had a little study bash the other night, so I decided to pretend I'd left my notes at her apartment by accident. For some reason, this struck me as the quintessential foot-in-the-door from which myriad conversations could bloom. Not that it couldn't have been. I just sort of expected Mami would be the one to engage first.

When I arrived at her apartment, she showed me inside. Since I'd called ahead she already had some refreshments laid out.

Strike one for me.

I had been planning on taking her up on an obligatory offer of tea so that she'd be out of the room for a brief moment while I pretended to find my notebook underneath a cushion. It didn't matter, as it turned out. She seemed to be quite content just staring out the window for no apparent reason.

Seizing the opportunity, I made some rustling movements as though I were looking around and shit and then happily exclaimed,

"Oh, here it is!"

Mami looked over at me and smiled mildly.

"Where was it?" She asked.

"It was under the cushion I used the other night," I lied in response.

"That's funny, I looked around after you called me and I could've sworn I checked under there," she replied, still smiling.

I politely chuckled to disguise myself choking on an abstract sense of fear.

"Well, I found it and that's all that matter,." I said with a grin.

Then silence. Horrifying, pitch dark silence.

Mami smiled demurely at me as I sat at her table holding my notes.

Strike two.

Dear sweet fucking Christ she seemed to think this visit was over. This wouldn't do at all. Madoka still needed to burst in and tell us about the grief seed at the hospital and Mami was about to kick me out before the fun even started. What happened to the holy grail of conversation starters that was the forgotten homework visit? Fucking hell, why the fuck didn't I think of anything to say to stall?

I'd severely underestimated Mami. I'd wholeheartedly believed that she was so cripplingly lonely that she'd be desperate to strike up a conversation with just about anyone given the opportunity. Yet here she was, demonstrating that she'd much rather stare out her fucking window and be left the fuck alone. I had to say something, anything to make my staying here seem remotely sensible.

"S-So, uh, Tomoe-san, what brand of shampoo do you-" I was interrupted by an obscenely asinine ringtone.

()~~()

Incidentally, it was Madoka delivering important information involving an impending witch instantiation.

I need to stop right here because I don't fucking get it.

I swear to God, every single loop before the last one had the girls foregoing their cell phones at this critical juncture. For some illusively intangible reason they had decided, twice in a row now, that cell phones were rather important in this day and age and that keeping them on your person was a well-established folkway. Having reached this conclusion they apparently both went ahead and grabbed them before heading out the door today.

Not that I was upset per se that the ubiquity of modern technology had suddenly clicked for them; in fact, thank fuck for cell phones because without them I would've been sentenced to several more minutes of spamming generally conversational phrases at Mami and likely failing miserably at it.

No, it just seemed so randomly precise that two vastly differing approaches somehow yielded the same microscopic difference in the timeline that simply hadn't existed before. I certainly wasn't consciously shooting for this result. Furthermore, this run was in large part the same as the first one with a few positioning differences.

Hell, If I'd made it a priority to get these muchachas to bring their phones with them I'd have no fucking idea where to start. It was as though some sentient force out there was tweaking little things like this for the express purpose of annoying the utter living shit out of me.

For the record, it was fucking working.

()~~()

We dropped everything to go help out with the situation at the hospital, of course. We made it just in time to witness the creation of a witch's labyrinth. In a very organized fashion, we geared up, looked both ways, and then entered.

Mami was well and truly built for demolishing trash mobs. I mean that in the most heartfelt way possible. At the outset, I had made the decision to let her handle things before we got to Charlotte's main chamber and, to be honest, that left me feeling a little guilty. As it turned out, however, it would have been difficult for me to get a word in edgewise as Mami swept the floor with these bastards before I could think to do anything.

Her single shot muskets weren't terribly impressive by themselves, but her bread and butter was in sheer number of projectiles. She had the ability to summon seemingly endless hordes of flintlock rifles out of her beret and had an effective fire rate that handily competed with a semi-automatic carbine. She would also pirouette, turning her attack into a lethal long range AOE attack. Then she would go and hit every fucking shot.

I rarely needed to rely on flick accuracy because I could just stop time and take decades lining up a shot. So it's not really that I was jealous, it was more 'how dare she be such a show-off when there are fucking kids starving in Africa'.

Quite refreshingly, Mami didn't have her total mental breakdown about being so lonely as a magical girl this time. I might have pinned it on the fact that I was present, and also a magical girl, so she had less reason to be upset this time, but that would've made me a bit conceited. She could just have easily remembered to eat breakfast this morning or seen a homeless puppy and decided to adopt it. I pinned it on me anyway because fuck puppies and breakfast.

The practical upshot was that nobody needed to feel awkward about watching Mami cry going into the final battle. The downside was that Madoka no longer had a fallback wish for a really big cake if she couldn't think of anything else. The cost-benefit ratio was pretty difficult to compute given such abstract terms and, frankly, wasn't even remotely important. So I did everyone a favor and assumed that it tended to 1 when recording it in my notes, albeit with a healthy asterisk next to it.

()~~()

Again, this was a proof of concept run. So, once we breached the main chamber I gave Mami a solid five seconds of fun before freezing time to set my own shit up.

Time constraints notwithstanding, she'd done a fucking number on the place already.

Charlotte had been blasted into the air and the remains of several of her servants were strewn about her like the ink blots of a Rorschach test. I don't know what Mami made of it, but to me, it looked a hell of a lot like two giraffes spooning. Except the giraffes were on fire and their guts had exploded out of their bodies and they were being choked to death by their own guts.

Freud and Jung could laugh all they wanted. They could laugh until Ragnarok itself were upon us and continue to laugh as they fought and died gloriously for the promise of a world reborn, but it would not change the undeniable fact that I was looking at two deathlessly kinky, self-asphyxiating, long necked motherfuckers set ablaze in a fire of eternal damnation.

There were a couple others that looked sort of like ice cream cones but I could see those being credited to an active imagination.

This was gonna take a couple time stops.

First I needed to inflict enough damage to bait her into her final form, then stop time again to set up my killing salvo. Mami's generally able to do this with an initial barrage of musket fire followed by a wallop from her big fucking cannon. So I decided to try emulating her typical firing solution.

I didn't have any sixteenth century antiques on hand, but I did have my trusty Type 89 which, for fuck's sake, better be at least comparable in terms of lethality. If not, I had plenty of cartridges so that oughta fudge it in my favor anyway.

I liberally applied bullets in no particular pattern other than generally pointed at Charlotte's flailing doll body. After I achieved a satisfactory coating, I swapped my rifle for an AT-4. Here's where I needed to do a bit of guesswork.

I certainly didn't know how big of a punch Mami's cannon packed. It was doubtful that she even knew within any reasonable bounds. So even if I had the time, it didn't seem as though it would be profitable to go ask her how powerful her finishing move was in units of anti-tank rockets.

I'm sure I could have jury rigged some sort of bullshit Fermi equation for this, if I'd felt like spending that long, but instead, I just opted to launch projectiles until the resultant jet streams appealed to my uninformed standards of dynamic symmetry. There was about six or seven in the air by the time I was done. Now it was time to stand back and let her rip.

For a brief moment, Mami still looked pretty happy with herself as she grabbed another musket and began lining up her next shot. Her glib expression turned to one of genuine confusion as her field of vision was filled by a maelstrom of bullets with several explosions at its center.

Charlotte's body was flung against the far wall, riddled with holes and singed in numerous places. Not to be outdone, though, she immediately sprang back out, revealing her true snake-like form. I waited for her to zero in on me, then stood firm as she opened her gaping mouth to envelop my petite frame.

Time stop number two.

I now had a perfect shot at the witch's internals. I just needed to dump a bunch of explosives into her stomach and trigger them to go all at once. I leapt into Charlotte's maw and performed a cursory inspection of the structural integrity of her body. I noted any inflamed or otherwise shrapnel ridden tissue, load bearing vertebrae, and internal lesions. These served as excellent locations to place C-4 charges.

For good measure, I also littered the esophagus with some M26 frags and some old pipe bombs I found lying around in my shield.

Shit.

My cake was still in here. I'd totally forgotten about it. It'd been at least a couple weeks since I bought it now. No way in hell was this thing still edible.

Fuck it. Charlotte could have it.

I unceremoniously hurled the box, discus style, as far back into her throat as I could manage before hopping out. After getting to a safe distance, I pulled out my remote detonator and prepared for the fireworks.

To outside observers, namely Mami, Sayaka, and Madoka, the whole process occurred over roughly 5 seconds. It ended with Charlotte ripping apart at the seams as spectacular orange flames erupted from every orifice, most of which were brand new.

At first, you could hear the individual charges blasting one at a time but, as the initial explosions triggered the additional ordinances I'd left lying around, it became more of a cacophony of ear splitting cracks not unlike an altogether unhealthy number of popcorn bags being microwaved at once. It was pretty spectacular.

Sure, it was wholly unnecessary to waste that many explosives on a single target, but this was no world for half measures. Besides, some of that stuff was getting old. It's not terribly ideal to be reliant on old equipment, especially the kind that can deconstruct your body if handled improperly.

Nothing of real note was left of Charlotte. In fact, I couldn't really be sure that the things I was tentatively ID'ing as her remains actually used to belong to her.

Grief seeds usually at least make an effort to crop up in areas of dense witch matter after a kill. Not that it's important or anything. To me, it adds a bit of welcome reactivity in how the seeds are presented which is, nonetheless, entirely aesthetic in nature. That being said, this grief seed didn't seem to want to touch this one with a ten foot pole and I didn't blame it.

It sort of just appeared on the ground well off to the side which everyone knew was total bullshit, but frankly, there wasn't anything left that one could point to as quintessentially Charlotte.

Complete disintegration. I'd never done that to her before.

I'd make a really utilitarian note about it like it wasn't that big a deal. My contemporaries would ogle and scratch their heads while they sat awestruck at how unbelievably chill my report was.

()~~()

There was something of an awkward silence as the room dissolved around us and we returned to the hospital.

"Akemi-s-san?" Madoka nervously uttered. "Did... you do that?"

Mami was in the same position she'd been in since the second time stop, still clutching her musket and aiming at an empty sky. She slowly lowered her weapon and glanced at me with inadequately veiled concern in her eyes.

This was all fair, I suppose. I hadn't made it priority number one to display the breadth of my firepower before this particular outing, so their confusion was understandable.

"Hehe, w-what do you mean, Kaname-san? Which part?" I replied as though trying to appear modest.

I wasn't sure whether it made any sense to act green anymore as, firstly, I already had an in with these folks and, secondly, the cat might kind of be out of the bag at this point.

I'd never presented myself as dumb to these people but, given the whole moe vibe I'd been projecting, that may have been the default assumption. Foregoing the idea that I was unfathomably stupid, my inquiry, on its face, made absolutely no fucking sense. And that was reflected quite amply in Sayaka's playful yet stern rejoinder.

"Which fucking part do you think?" She said, providing much needed clarification.

I sighed. I guess I wasn't quite done with the PR shit after all.

I suppose causing things to inexplicably disaggregate and then expecting everyone to be cool with it was pushing the bounds of friendship, or acquaintanceship as it were, slightly beyond what was reasonable.

Everyone stared at me expectantly as I slowly wiped the nervous smile off my face. Oh well. They say hindsight's 20-20.

Fuckin' A.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	3. Proof of Concept: Part Two

Of paramount importance, probably, was ensuring my cohorts that I wasn't as frightening as my previous display may have suggested. Yeah, I 'd gone from zero to psychopathic demi-god over a very short span of time, but what needed to define me were my words and not my actions. That was likely too idealistic to execute properly with my limited time frame and resources. I was well aware of that, but let's get down to brass tacks here.

I had a notebook.

()~~()

At the risk of contributing to society's broken record on the subject of technology, I'll assert once more that the most eminently exploitable feature of modern day communication is the ability to proofread one's sentiments prior transmission. That's not a tool you have when speaking face to face, generally speaking.

Of course, it would trigger a sociological collapse of some magnitude if we did away with the tactile immediacy of authentic human interaction. The hippies would go nuclear on us if we could all decide that we'd rather be texting the people in front of us. Which is why it's probably best that I'm the only one who gets to do that.

The psychologists could go ahead and name a neurological disorder after me for all I care. They could add me to the next edition of the Merck and I wouldn't bat an eye. Because if I wanted to forsake my humanity and stop time to carefully consider my next words then God damn it that's what I was gonna do.

So that's what I did. I looked present company dead in the eye and gave my shield a half turn, halting the current of time. It was out of necessity really. I had the potential to seriously flub this persuasion check if I wasn't on the ball, and for the record, I was not on the ball. The ball was gone. I'd lost it. Not to worry though. I had plenty of time to find it.

()~~()

They say that American natives were known for using every bit of each buffalo they hunted, whereas the European settlers were prone to leaving everything but the hide. It disgusted the natives, for it was of the highest dishonor to the sacred animal to take its life and let so much of its body go to waste. I was no native. I wasn't really big on any sort of new age philosophy either. But what I saw before me was a fresh buffalo kill, and I intended to use every last hunk of it to my advantage.

That is to say, I realized I had an opportunity to closely scrutinize my companions' body language whilst planning my statement. They all bore a variety of brazenly confused visages for starters, but I didn't need a looking glass to tell me that.

Sayaka, in particular, had a very stern look on her face which read as somewhere between "This bitch is gettin on my nerves." And "Imma fuck this bitch up." I also noticed she was clutching her club, which rested on her shoulder, very tightly, as though she was preparing to act on the latter sentiment. Suffice to say, soothing Sayaka's concerns currently had top priority.

Moving on to Mami, I could see that her mild yellow eyes held no apparent animosity towards me, just genuine confusion. As plain as it gets, Mami was looking for answers. Because beyond the main thrust of what had just occurred she was simply befuddled by the preceding episode. I also noticed, with audible relief, that she had her finger off the trigger of her terminal rifle. Mami just needed the situation explained. That was easy enough.

Lastly, I observed that Madoka wasn't actually looking at me. I mean, she was looking at me but she wasn't focused on me. She was spacing out, as though deep in thought. Or, more likely, she was remembering something. It was quite probable that she was recalling the dream she'd had about me and was now formulating a more comprehensive image of me as a person. It was far and away a more accurate representation than anything she'd been working with before, but it wouldn't do for her to have such a spot on idea of who I was just yet. Out of everyone here, I still needed her trust if I was to convince her not to become a magical girl, so I needed to ground myself with this statement as well.

Tallying the score, I reckoned I needed to be conciliatory, explanatory, and down to earth when explaining that, yes, It was, in fact, I who blew Charlotte to fucking oblivion. I sat down with my notebook and started drafting a proper response.

()~~()

When I was finished, it came out something like this:

"Oh, gee. You mean the big fiery explosions? Yeah, I guess I got super duper excited and wanted to show off a little, but I might have overdone it. Silly me!"

I finished by chortling and lightly rapping my knuckles against my skull, executing some form of self-punishment.

All in all, it didn't play quite as well as I'd hoped. Actually, if we're being honest here, it didn't fucking play. They just kept staring at me like I'd made a joke about murdering their parents.

"Yeah... Okay," said Sayaka as she loosened her grip on the club slightly.

Mami gave her musket a little twirl and deposited it in her boot where it seemed to disappear. She then transformed back to normal, turned to leave, and said "Alright. Gotcha."

Madoka looked at me and laughed nervously.

"That's okay, Akemi-san. I tend to overdo things all the time. Heh heh."

God damn it. Why was it so fucking difficult to regulate my deep character flaws without coming across as completely bonkers? I'm not even the crazy one. These bitches should see Sayaka when she gets upset. That's what a real basket case looks like.

In any event, I'd seemed to inadvertently create the moment which would define my relationship with these girls for the duration of the time loop, but at least they weren't dead this time. We all resolved to call it a day.

()~~()

The next section of the timeline was relatively uncharted territory. Mami didn't often make it this far. It also signaled the beginning of a real crisis I needed to deal with. Mami wasn't dead, and I hadn't done a single fucking thing to make becoming a magical girl seem even remotely disadvantageous. These girls were primed to contract, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. It was a like a game of hearts in which I'd suddenly realized I couldn't get rid of the queen of spades. The only way to pull this back was to shoot the moon.

Sayaka would contract. Couldn't do shit about that. She had both the aptitude and the drive. Having something to wish for in her back pocket helped too. Madoka was still very much on the fence about it. She wasn't built for this line of work, but eventually, she was slated to come around to the idea. Especially with all this positive energy floating around. The next big events set to occur regarded Kyouko's arrival, Sayaka's contract, and possibly the discovery of the true nature of the soul gems.

Here was catch-22 part 2. If the group were to discover the truth, that our bodies were now just husks which were controlled by our soul gems, then Sayaka would just fucking lose it. That's how it always happens. Very rarely does she ever recover from that. At the same time, it serves as a beautiful deterrent for Madoka. With Mami still alive, the next biggest thing to stop Madoka from contracting was her best friend going suicidally nuclear. However, this was still a numbers game. I could hardly afford to lose Sayaka before the fight with Walpurgisnacht if previous iterations held true, and thus, I needed a backup strat.

()~~()

I had one. It was ridiculous but I did have one.

It was Kyouko, essentially. It was everything about Kyouko that was worth detesting.

My plan was to highlight for Madoka the cutthroat nature of the business, as well as the inescapable ennui of the endless battle with the witches. The reality being that she'd likely be living grief seed to grief seed, always on the hunt, always on the brink.

That was the sales pitch.

That was literally all I had in the way of halting the contract, short of sending Sayaka into a chaotic death spiral, or over facilitating Mami's ego to yield fatal decapitation. Kyouko was the name of the game. The biggest problem was that she wasn't even supposed to show up while Mami was still alive.

Mitakihara City is Mami's beat. Kyouko just subs when she dies. Mass action dictates that the void is filled quickly, and so it is. The trouble now is that Kyouko had no incentive to drop in. So I had to go and make one for her.

This worked out rather nicely, as it was becoming clear that my diplomatic efforts hadn't been received as well as I might have hoped. My scripted remarks hadn't worked, frankly. The gang seemed to be actively distancing themselves from me and opting to go witch hunting alone. That sucked a bit, but it was fine for now. We were in a lull where relatively little happened, and I had bigger fish to fry.

How does one earn Kyouko's favor? Perhaps that was a bit too ambitious. Instead, how does one get Kyouko to do you a favor? Was that the same thing? Etymologically speaking, yeah probably, but connotatively those were fucking pretty different. I needed to either threaten her with violence—say, the desecration of her family's burial site—or offer a reward in return for assisting me.

Now, modern psychology asserts that positive reinforcement yields more favorable results than punishment, so bribing her looked like a pretty attractive option. However, in the words of the illusive bastard, Al Capone, you can get much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt put it more eloquently with "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Either way, this episode of Sesame Street was clearly brought to us by the number ".50" and the letter "I'm not leaving my fucking Deagle at home for this one."

()~~()

She was holed up in some derelict radio tower a mile from nowhere. She sat alone, devouring the remains of a convenience store rice ball before tossing the wrapping aside amongst numerous other nondescript empty packages. It was late evening, so her face was illuminated mostly by the dim red glow of the soul gem she idly fiddled with.

In a way, I felt for her. Yellow, blue, and pink were all bright colors. Mami and the others had no trouble using their soul gems as flashlights. But the longer your wavelengths get, the less energy per photon and all that shit. Suffice to say, Kyouko and I got fucking shafted when it came to extra utilities. I know it's not a Swiss army knife, but I think I'm justifiably upset that my soul is only barely bright enough to read by.

"How'd you find me?" Kyouko started in a convincingly menacing tone. "Who might you care to explain your—fuck," she muttered after fumbling her inquiry.

I got a bit excited, but my experience kept me level-headed. Kyouko had merely hung a pawn, that was nothing to get ecstatic over.

"Kyubey told me where I might find you," I said coolly. It was a lie. Truth be told, this tower was something of a de facto domicile for the poor little street urchin. I'd met her here a few times before.

She huffed, clearly buying it, as it wasn't totally unreasonable.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Homura Akemi. You can call me whatever you want."

Kyouko rubbed her chin as she sized me up.

"You're a magical girl too, right? What do you want?"

I spoke not a word but went straight to my work. My work consisted of pulling several boxes of pocky out of my shield, one at a time, and stacking them on the floor in front of her. I had many flavors, a keen observer might note.

To her credit, Kyouko looked on without a trace of bemusement, as though she'd seen this song and dance before. I was fairly certain she hadn't because I wrote this song and choreographed this dance. The pocky routine was an original.

It took me a long ass time. I'd initially thought I could pack a box full of these packages and stuff the whole box into my storage unit, but it didn't even work theoretically. The dimensions were stubbornly unworkable. Even if I'd managed to shove it in, there was no way in hell it would come back out. So I resigned to carrying them in singles. Whatever. Here we were.

When I was finished, I knelt beside the appreciable array of biscuit sticks and said, "I'd like a favor Sakura-san."

Kyouko looked at me, then at the pocky, then back at me.

"Are you fucking joking?"

"I've brought you dozens of boxes of frosted biscuit sticks in assorted flavors," I said, undeterred. "Who doesn't appreciate numerous biscuit sticks in assorted flavors?"

"No fucking shit. Why did you fucking do that?"

"As I said, I need a favor."

"And what would that be?" Kyouko demanded, exasperated.

I bit my lip in hesitation. I actually didn't have the most cogent job description prepared as of yet.

In essence, I wanted Kyouko to be like one of those recovering drug addicts, or alcoholics, or those dumb fucks who kill people while texting and driving, who then are made to give presentations to school children on why their behavior was bad. It was like community service but it was spiritually degrading, and in this case, entirely voluntary.

Actually, that summed it up pretty well, so that's what I went with.

Imagine a look of wide-eyed wonder, except it's actually disgust. That's what Kyouko was bearing when I finished my spiel.

I admired her restraint. At this stage "Are you fucking nuts?" Is practically obligatory, yet jaded and redundant. Instead, she just said "No."

Alright. Diplomacy had broken down. It was time for a tactical push in the form of a veiled threat. Really, honestly, that's what the situation called for, and I knew that very well. That's why I'm confused as to how it escalated to me aiming my Deagle at her chest with one hand, holding multiple boxes of pocky out the window with the other, and shouting "I swear to fucking God, I will drop these fucking biscuit sticks if you don't do what I say!"

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" Kyouko blasted, having already transformed. "I'll just fucking grab the boxes later! I don't care!" She held her spear like she was ready to throw it at my throat. It was just posturing. She knew as well as I that I held the high ground.

"Is that so?" I asked slyly. "Say, you ever shoot clay pigeons, Sakura-san?" I said this as I produced three green tea flavored pocky sticks from the package I held.

She looked on despairingly as I threw them in a haphazard arc, or thereabouts, and swung my shooting arm over to dispatch them all.

I'll admit I used a freebie on that one. It wasn't so much a demonstration of skill as it was a vulgar display of power. The effect left little to be desired. Kyouko actually shrieked when the airborne pockys burst into infinitesimal singed crumbs.

"Don't you fucking dare do that again, bitch!" She said, her voice quivering. "I'll fucking kill you if I ever see you wasting food again!"

I smiled coldly.

"Be my guest. I've got plenty of assorted flavors here. We can day this all do—fuck."

In the end, my overly aggressive midgame allowed for an unfortunately prolonged endgame. Which I won, for the record, but it was far too involved for my tastes. A lot of old scars brought into the daylight. A lot of soul-baring I could have done without, but I had Kyouko now.

()~~()

Upon my return to Mitakihara proper, I was greeted with the actualization of what was, at this point, a fairly resolute inevitability. Sayaka had contracted with Kyubey and was now traipsing through the city with Mami dispelling familiars at every turn. She'd also done the liberty of saving Hitomi's ass while she was at it.

Here's the thing about Sayaka.

Her big crush, Kyousuke, used to be a violinist before he fucked up his wrist. Now he can't play, and he's naturally a bit butthurt over it. Sayaka shares this sentiment. Her main plan of action is to bring Kyousuke CD's of various accomplished violin artists so they can listen together through a shared set of earbuds. Not bad. But at a certain point, Kyosuke starts acting like a bitch and accuses her of torturing him by forcing him to listen to shit he'll likely never perform again.

The implication that some entity out there gets their kicks by savoring the tears of young crippled musicians after they've forced them to listen to examples of their former specialties is unquestionably very rich. However, Sayaka sees the indictment as valid and decides to grant the kid's wrist back with her wish. Honestly, I'm glad that works out for her, but I don't like the position it puts Madoka in.

Thankfully, Madoka had not succumbed quite yet. The beautiful thing about her is that she very rarely contracts unless there is a clear and present danger which cannot be averted in any other way. That's because, by default, she doesn't have anything worth risking her life to wish for. That was all well and good, but it wasn't the biggest thing I had on my plate.

()~~()

Introducing Kyouko was logistically awkward. There wasn't any instance where it really made sense to suddenly add a member to the party. Oh well. The details could be ironed out later. This was just a proof of concept run anyway.

These girls seemed to like meeting on bridges. Specifically pedestrian overpasses. I couldn't figure why, but that's where we stood. Kyouko's red hair fluttered in the breeze as she leaned against the handrail. She seemed more interested in the half-eaten taiyaki in her hand than in her audience as she spoke.

Her audience consisted of Mami, Madoka, Sayaka, and Kyubey. I stood by in attendance. I was sort of the emcee for this little get-together as well.

"This contract thing may sound like all that. It certainly did to me, anyways," she started slowly. "You get a wish. Anything in the whole wide world if you asked for it, and damn it, I did."

I had to give her credit. She'd ostensibly had no time to prepare for this little speech but this was proving to be a fucking masterful lead-in.

She took a bite out of her taiyaki and chewed thoughtfully for several seconds.

"It ended up costing me my entire family. Worst part is there's nobody to blame but me." Fucking hell, that was heavy. Surgically precise in tone. This was going beautifully.

"I thought it was a decent wish at the time. I was stupid... So stupid." She popped the rest of the taiyaki into her mouth and swallowed it remarkably fast. "You know what I've got to show for it? Nothin'. No house, no parents, no fuckin' cable television. Just a rusty radio tower, a weird rabbit thing to keep me company, and an endless horde of witches to hunt just to stay alive." She busted open a box of strawberry pocky and jammed a couple into her mouth. "I could be here telling you how you should never, ever, waste your wishes on someone else, a lesson I know from experience, but today this bitch wanted me to tell you not to contract at all," she said, gesturing at me with a pocky stick. "Probably better advice anyway."

I had to stop myself from gaily applauding at the fantastic presentation. I wished the other viewers had the same problem, but the reactions were a bit mixed.

Forget how principally convoluted it is to introduce a new friend to your old ones. That's a thing in itself. In addition, this sure as hell wasn't a new friend, and these gals would be hesitant to call me an old one. Replace this 'new friend' with a 'guest speaker' you've invited for an unsolicited seminar. Everyone is familiar with the subject matter, but the stance you have this speaker take makes you out to be a massive hypocrite and is an about-face with regards to your previous behavior.

The word is clunky.

If I was a writer, I would not have written the story this way. If I was real life, I would not play out in this fashion. On several occasions, I've made attempts to convey to my fellow transients that I am a time traveler and know what comes to pass in the near future. Hardly ever do they accept that claim on its face, and that's reasonable to expect. What people need is proof. I can provide circumstantial evidence, like stopping time, or predicting a future event. That sometimes works, but it isn't definitive proof.

What I'd provided with this impromptu magical girl symposium was a determinately contrived situation. I'd confidently assert that anyone missing the signs that I wasn't operating on the same plane of reality clearly couldn't see the forest for the fucking objective lenses strapped to their faces.

Kyouko slowly chewed on her pocky while ostentatiously gazing over her shoulder to view the setting sun in the west.

She and Mami sort of knew each other, through various run-ins and/or word of mouth. They didn't really like each other, the opposite scenario being an atrociously high energy configuration, so Mami didn't take kindly to the whole display, and remained tight-lipped.

Madoka had questions and had patiently waited for the Q&A segment to ask them.

"Sakura-san, is it?" She asked politely, receiving only a glance in reply. "What is it you wished for?" Not just an audacious advance in general, but a supremely audacious one when considering the parties involved.

"Jeez..." Kyouko muttered under her breath. "I made a wish for someone close to me. When he found out, he called me a witch, went crazy, and then killed himself." Storytelling at its most elegant.

"I just wanted you to know," Madoka said with Polaris sized stars in her eyes, "That I don't think it was your fault. You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened."

Kyouko's tone became stern and bitter.

"Listen here, miss pigtails, you don't know a damn thing about it. Never use a wish on somebody else. You'll only make things worse than they were. Better yet, don't make a wish at all. A softie like you wouldn't last a week."

This prompted some mild saber rattling from Sayaka.

"Oh yeah? And what do you know about it, bitch? I oughta teach you a fuckin' lesson about caring for others!" All in attendance, Sayaka included, mused that the threat could have been worded more effectively.

"What did you wish for, huh?" Kyouko retorted coolly. "Probably something silly. You didn't wish for love, did you?"

Mami quite accurately assessed that the situation was rapidly approaching flash point and that swift intervention was required. Before another word could be uttered, she quickly tied Sayaka up with her yellow ribbon and said "We'll be leaving now." before dragging her away. Madoka meekly followed behind. Kyubey stared intently in my direction for a good deal of time before sauntering off to god knows where.

The Sayaka thing was probably gonna be a problem. If I wasn't careful it could actually be a critical issue. I internally shrugged. I'd probably bought myself a week.

()~~()

Kazamino city was Mitakihara's neighbor. Kyouko grew up there, and it was where her family was buried. She and I happened to find ourselves there, in a graveyard, to pay respects I suppose. Her old house had burned down. At first, there were some allegations regarding arson and thus murder, but the case had been promptly dropped as evidence was sparse and no one was left who cared to know.

Her father hadn't been a bad man. Not by a long shot. In the end, though, he was really bad. Really quite unforgivably bad.

There wasn't anything special about the gravestones. They were engraved with names and dates but nothing more. One of these cycles I swore I was gonna come here and etch something like "This deadbeat killed his wife and daughter and then himself because he was a bitch. Seriously, fuck this guy." Not only would that take an exorbitant amount of time, but Kyouko was here too, so that wasn't gonna happen today.

For her part, I don't think she knew what she was doing here. She stood there with her hands in her pockets, a lollipop in her mouth, and a disinterested look on her face. She was here for no other reason, it seemed, than that this is what people did. I hoped it was cathartic in some way, but it didn't fucking look like it was.

"I'm a time traveler," I said as the rain began to pick up.

"No shit," Kyouko replied, her clarity of speech somewhat obstructed by the lollipop. "Anyone with half a brain can see you use time manipulation magic. And what with all this hooey you're going on about, you're either a kook or you've been to the future."

"That's very sound reasoning," I said with no small amount of respect.

"Listen. I don't wanna hear about any of it." She said as she pulled up her hood. "I did my bit here. I'll help you take out that Walpurgisnacht thing, but then I'm done. Got it?"

She walked off without waiting for an answer. Kyouko Sakura was quite possibly the most jaded individual I knew of. And I was me.

Just as well, I suppose.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	4. Proof of Concept: Part Three

Something I tend to stress from time to time is the importance of brevity. A beautiful concept that guides almost every decision I make with regards to taking notes in my pocketbook. So important to me is this concept that the first page of my notebook is adorned with the phrase "Every word tells, motherfucker." Not actually my phrase, I jacked it from somebody, somewhere, but I added the 'motherfucker' because it needed more punch.

Imagine my surprise when I awoke to find my lovely record desecrated in the ugliest fashion possible, and I'd done it. I clutched my head, half from the raging headache I had from last night, half from the despair caused by the passage I read.

_"The dull-headed ditz, Sakura Kyouko-san, has at last been persuaded to aid us in our noble cause. It is with tremendous glee that I now report this development presently in this particular note taking book. Though stubborn and brutish at first, the lady may be swayed by way of coercion. That is, victory may be bequeathed through the leveraging of certain chocolate covered biscuit sticks in assorted flavors. How lovely it is that I now command the power of another magical girl in our quest to obliterate and annihilate_ _that god-forsaken beast, Walpurgisnacht. Until next time my fair companion."_

The handwriting was beautiful. I gave myself that much. I didn't want to begin to address the glaring redundancies, the patently incorrect use of the word 'bequeathed', and not the least concerning bit, the insistence that the notebook was somehow a person, but here I was addressing those things. Unable to come to terms with my egregious errors, I decided to fix them.

Proper notebook etiquette demands that no entry be obliterated, to use the word in a more dignified sense, but rather entries that are to be omitted must be stricken through. I firmly crossed out the offending section with a very bureaucratic looking 'X', signed and dated the change, and wrote underneath:

_"Kyouko's gonna help gangbang Walpy. Hold the Pocky hostage. Fuck yeah."_

It would've been prudent, then, to take measures against unintended notebook manipulation, such as acquiring a time delay safe, or assigning a designated note taker whenever I went out drinking. I instead vowed to never consume Sake again.

()~~()

There is a problem with Murphy's Law. Put simply, "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong." Of course, that's not really true. It's not really a law. It's a pessimistic worldview epitomized as a proverb. The real heart of the thing is in promoting a cautious outlook on everything one does. You might say, "measure twice, cut once."

Mathematically speaking, though, Murphy's Law holds water. Given enough trials, anything possible within a given system is probabilistically guaranteed to occur at least once, but since real life doesn't work that way, most things that have a minute potential to go cataclysmically pear-shaped, don't. Unfortunately, since the system I currently inhabit exists in sequentially executed trials, Murphy contingencies become non-negligible.

After spending a good deal of time being tossed about by an unfeeling time loop, I've come to the conclusion that nobody really  _gets_  cosmic irony unless they've truly experienced first hand how the cosmos operates. I don't pin the deluded failure of the Incubators to properly educate their champions about how their soul gems work on Murphy's Law. The Incubators are sentient enough to bear that blame on their fluffy little haunches. In addition, to hold the unavoidable clusterfuck that is a middle schooler's backpack as somehow culpable for a hysterically obvious inevitability is, of all things, unfair. Instead, to rationalize the casual undoing of my weeks of patient work, I'll cite Gerrold's first and second laws of infernal dynamics:

1\. An object in motion will be moving in the wrong direction, and

2\. An object at rest will be in the wrong place.

The former object being Sayaka, the latter her soul gem.

()~~()

We were visiting that chic little café they always loved going to after school. I accompanied them because I forced myself along and they hadn't the collective spine to dismiss me.

We talked about a lot, but then again we didn't really talk about anything. The whole exchange felt dead. Well past dead, in fact. No one looked at each other, no one made a counterpoint to anything that was said. Only the barest hints of affirmative noises were made in response to anything. Kyubey added nothing to the atmosphere, but for once, there was nothing for him to take away either. If a doctor had been tasked with resuscitating this conversation, he would've looked dumbfoundedly at the ground and said, "This thing isn't really dead, it's a rock."

Mami had a new cake recipe she wanted us to try. The gals dug the shit out of that.

Sayaka, for her part, couldn't stop talking about Kyousuke. Of course, he'd been healed by her wish, and now he was practicing violin again. For somebody who probably ought to have other interests and hobbies, Sayaka sure came across as someone who was completely unaware of anything besides this musician kid.

The monotony of it almost made me forget about the puppet show I'd put on for them the other day, courtesy of Kyouko. Mami had given me a stern talking to after that. She wasn't exactly on good terms with Sakura-san, so she found it mildly alarming that I seemed to have a working relationship with her. I managed to convince her that she was mistaken. That Kyouko and I were very tenuous allies. Which was the truth, but not the whole truth. It's much easier to bullshit someone when you're not actually lying.

When we left the café, Sayaka was in the middle of half-heartedly telling us about Kyousuke's favorite baroque era composer when a small child ran up behind her and slapped a sticky note on her back before getting the hell out of dodge.

She turned abruptly and shouted, "YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

The note, which I now could see, read "Irrevocably Damaged" in English. He could have just gone with "kick me" or "I'm stupid" or maybe even "I have small boobs". Instead, he'd gone and scrapped together the edgiest, most neo-poetic thing I've ever seen appended to someone's back. Hats off to that little shit.

Sayaka turned to Madoka. "Hold this for me." She said as she handed off her bookbag. She then took off running after the miscreant. We all stared in bemusement.

After several seconds, Madoka leaned towards me and started, "Akemi-san, what was written on her-" She stopped talking and dropped Sayaka's bookbag onto the pavement.

In pursuit of the good-for-nothing child, Sayaka had suddenly gone limp and fallen flat on her face in the middle of a crosswalk. She wasn't getting up.

I knew what this was.

()~~()

Sayaka had sustained a broken nose, several contusions in her neck and upper torso, and likely a moderate to severe concussion. I stood and watched as Madoka sat on her knees, her clothes stained with blood, attempting to perform a vital sign check. Her arms were shaking as she desperately tried to get a read on Sayaka's pulse. Miki-san's face was covered in blood which still gushed out of her wounds, covering her wide, vacant eyes. Mami, just as bewildered as Madoka, held an ear close to her friend's bruised and broken lips, listening for any sign of life.

Madoka's eyes darted every which way as she shook her head. "I d-don't know! I-I can't f-feel anything!"

"I don't hear any breathing," Mami corroborated, a slight measure more composed.

It was dead, but it wasn't Sayaka.

"Where's her soul gem?" I inquired flatly.

Mami looked at me as though it were the most natural thing in the world to ask. "I don't know. I don't see it." She worriedly looked around the corpse, clearly with no idea why I'd asked for it.

Kyubey, seemingly apparating from nowhere, jumped on top of my head and looked back down the street where we'd come from. "Silly Sayaka. How did she expect to chase that child down from all the way over there?" He was addressing the bookbag which had been left where Madoka dropped it.

I've seen this reveal more than a few times. It's generally pretty slow going, as Kyubey's not very forthcoming with details. I could have time-stopped and grabbed the bag to be more efficient, but instead, I walked. I wasn't in any hurry, and I kinda wanted to let those three hash out the details on their own.

()~~()

Honestly though, why in the name of fuck was this so retardedly easy? Soul gems are like car keys. They control your vehicle, and apparently, they're also something you forget you left in your purse.

I didn't mean to put such a hefty burden of blame on Sayaka here. It's really Kyubey's fault for telling literally nobody that they now controlled their bodies via some Bluetooth bullshit and that the range left a bit to be desired, but she really should've known better. I made a point of muttering "Why do ya gotta be such a stupid bitch?" Into her bag when I picked it up.

The real problem is the potential for irreversible accidents involving soul gems. When you lock your keys inside your car, that sucks, but at least you can call a locksmith and have them jury-rig their way inside. If you get separated from your soul gem accidentally, and there aren't any friends nearby, that's it. You're toast. You've softlocked on life.

I feel like more thinking should have gone into these things. It's like I'm alpha testing a really buggy piece of shit game and I know precisely how I would fix it. Except the game's never coming out of alpha, and it's never getting any updates, and I have to keep playing this game for the rest of my fucking life, bugs and all.

()~~()

Over the next few days, Sayaka's mental fortitude began to show signs of cracking. First, it was the diving headlong into witch hunting. She was refusing to cleanse her soul gem. She started to doubt if this world was really worth sticking up for. She also found herself unable to stop Hitomi from making a move on her boy Kyousuke. It was a thorough rout. The good news was that it scared the shit out of Madoka. The bad news was that, at this rate, Sayaka might not make it to the boss fight.

My ace in the hole was Mami Tomoe. She causes a lot of problems by being alive early on, but once the rubber meets the road she becomes a real asset. With Sayaka on the fritz, I was no longer the black sheep, so you could say I had the ear of the court. At our next luncheon, from which Sayaka was absent, I aired my concerns to the group.

"Miki-san doesn't seem to be holding up very well..." I started, adjusting my glasses and averting my gaze, "Do you think... there's anything we can do to help her?" I now stared Mami straight in the eyes, my own, two giant wells of concern.

Mami grinned wryly at me, unimpressed. "You're very interesting Akemi-san." She let her chin rest on her palm and exhaled pointedly. "I can't tell if anything you've said has carried a single iota if sincerity." She didn't beat around the bush. Mami was likely the most perceptive girl in the group. More so, even, than Kyouko.

I slowly brought my arm up and rested my elbow on the table. I removed my glasses with my other hand, then rested my chin upon my palm, mirroring Mami's pose.

While I did this, Madoka gaped at Mami. "T-Tomoe-san! That's... That's an awful thing to say to someone!" She huffed indignantly. "Where do you... What gives you the right to-" I cut her off.

"You keep talking about how it's hell out there. At least I'm assuming you do; I'll give you credit for that." I'd completely dropped my tone. We were in bitch mode. "But here we are drinking tea and shooting the shit like it's just as well. This isn't fucking drivers ed. If you really cared about these girls' livelihoods, if  _we_  cared, we'd be telling them to stay the hell away, and they'd be better off for it."

Madoka looked utterly flummoxed. Mami just stared on intently.

I'd been staring at the wall for a while. Now I shifted my head to look in Mami's direction. "You're saying I'm insincere, and that's fine. I haven't been honest in presenting myself, but I'm not wrong. You, on the other hand, have been casually normalizing the idea of selling your soul for a wish, and to be honest, I think it's because on some level you want these girls to contract. So you won't be alone. You haven't been very honest either, but the difference is that  _you_  are wrong." I finished my tea in one gulp. "So, would you like me to level with you?"

Mami nodded.

I continued. "Sayaka gets herself killed. Soon. This isn't something she recovers from. I'm sure nobody wants that, but it's also a critical mission failure for me when she bites it. She needs to last at least another two weeks if that's possible."

"Why's that?" Mami inquired.

"Because a huge fucking mega-witch appears over the city in a couple weeks, and I need everyone's help to bring it down."

Madoka piped up. "I-If that's the case... Then I should become a magical girl too!"

"I'm afraid that would be another critical mission failure for me," I replied. "The goal is to drag as few non-contractee's into this as possible." Not exactly untrue, but the truth was a little tough to sell here.

"How do you know that this witch is visiting Mitakihara?" Mami asked skeptically. "And how do you know when?"

"Statistics," I quipped. Actually, that was precisely true. I just hadn't explicitized what that entailed.

"So what do you propose we do about Sayaka?" She continued.

"That was my line," I breathed cheekily. "I'm not a doctor. Or rather, I'm not a surgeon. I can tell you there's a problem but I can't do fuck all to fix it." I paused. " _Can_  do fuck all to fix it. That was a double negative for a second."

Mami chuckled quietly. This gal.

"Well, I hardly have any solutions. I was just being coy," she said.

"Sure. Maybe your language was a bit too optimistic, or aggressive perhaps. Instead of the assuming  _propose_ , how about 'what do you  _suppose_  we do about Sayaka?' That's got a tone of realism to it."

Mami leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, a genuine grin on her face. Now she was impressed.

()~~()

What we ended up going with was something only Mami could have come up with. We'd pretty much agreed that the situation was totally FUBAR and that any attempt we made to fix it would be fairly vain. On another note, we realized that the only thing that would get through to Sayaka, the only thing that has  _ever_  gotten through to Sayaka, would be direct intervention. Conversely, we also understood that direct intervention had an equal likelihood to set her further in her ways. With these assumptions in place, only Mami could have suggested such a brash and optimistic yet confident and reserved plot.

We threw her a surprise birthday party.

We set up in Mami's apartment. I procured party supplies. We had Mami call Sayaka to invite her for tea. Reluctantly, she agreed to show up.

When she walked through the door, we clamped shut the jaws of our trap.

At first, she was put off by the whole thing, as expected. It was clear that this wasn't a simple birthday celebration, in no small part due to the fact that it wasn't even fucking close to her date of birth. It was structured like a suicide prevention meeting, but with all the levity of a fucking wine tasting party. In other words, it was genius.

By the end of the night, we'd gotten Sayaka to renege on her grief seed boycott. After attempting to instill in her the idea that her life had a finite non-zero value, we got her to fake a smile and say everything was going to be fine. That's as far as we were able to get. Which was way more than we were prepared to accept. It was nothing more than a band-aid for her trouble. It was the medicinal equivalent of handing a firehose to an overheating reactor and just sort of hoping it knew what the fuck to do with it. For my purposes though, it was more than sufficient.

She made it. Somewhat.

()~~()

My last notebook entry on the eve of the Walpurgisnacht fight read thus:

_"No one's really okay with Kyouko_ _helping out, but they're dealing. Sayaka could literally turn into a witch at any second. Madoka's still clean. Mami's game. Man advantage in our favor. Team morale is very low. Probability_ _of success is moderately low."_

I had them all, and that counted for something, but we weren't really ready for this. It was like we were diving into a team fight and nobody's cooldowns were up. Still, I was optimistic. Not really, that was a lie. I'm no optimist, but a hypothetical optimist existed who held to the axiom that we had a sporting chance, and that was good enough for me.

()~~()

A state of emergency was declared for the Mitakihara prefectural region. A system of very powerful winds had cropped up out of nowhere and was slated to cross directly over the city center. Citizens were encouraged to head to evacuation centers and stay inside by all means. I had hoped this would have kept Madoka out of the picture, but it never does, and it didn't this time either.

Here she was, in her school uniform, ready to watch us fight. I hadn't put a whole lot of emphasis on the fact that we weren't likely to succeed here. Of course, I'd said 'give 'em hell' and all that, wouldn't want them getting big heads about this thing, but I hadn't gone and told them they were probably going to die. Certainly, Madoka wasn't aware that the show she'd volunteered to watch was statistically a bloodbath.

The five of us sat by the waterside, waiting. The sky was uncharacteristically dark for noon. Kyouko stood alone, leaning against the railing, looking out at the water, two Pocky sticks in her mouth. Her hair flowed in violent lashes as wind gusts racked the harbor.

Mami sat on a bench next to Madoka, passive-aggressively berating her for leaving the evacuation shelter. Handily the most put together gal present. The infectious veneer of calm could not be removed from her face, it seemed.

Madoka, for her part, was scared shitless. She was trying her damnedest to hide it, but every now and again she would quietly whimper like a frightened puppy. It was clearly unintentional, which made it all the more disheartening as a sign of things to come.

If anything was to serve as my canary in a coal mine, though, it was Sayaka. She was the only one already in battle regalia. She sat against the levee, hugging her knees to her chest and murmuring to herself. Her eyes were as wide as they could be, as though to let in as much light as possible to purge the darkness inside. Sayaka liked to say that hope and despair tend to balance each other out, like two sides of an equation. By that logic, she must have given out a truly fucking superfluous number of smiles and rainbows to children everywhere in order to balance out the wanton extermination of baby seals encapsulated in human form that was Sayaka Miki in her current state.

It'd probably be fine.

()~~()

The storm reached its apex, and from the ominous supercell at its heart emerged a titanic mass of gears piloted by a grotesque figure in a gaudy blue dress. All around her, lesser and greater familiars gathered in a twisted ritualistic dance. A horrendous cackle filled the air as the congregation loomed closer.

Kyouko craned her neck to look back at me and said, "I suppose that'll be it, then." I couldn't help but be amused by her accidental double entendre. Yes, that was the witch I'd been referring to, and yes we were probably finished.

"Alright," I said, addressing the group. "You know the music. Time to dance."

The gang slowly gathered themselves as they prepared to face the toughest enemy they'd ever encountered. The fear was too systemic, too absolute, to register on anyone's faces. They simply ogled the monster with morbid fascination.

Kyouko noticed that Sayaka hadn't moved from her spot. Bending over, she inquired, "You gonna sit there all day buttercup? It's not like there's an emergent problem or anything."

Sayaka slowly shifted her gaze to meet Kyouko's, but said nothing.

"Relax, rookie. I don't mean nothin'," Said Kyouko, standing straight. "Besides, now's one of those times... it pays to be the strong silent type."

Mami did a pert little pirouette and transformed into her battle gear. She pulled a musket out of her boot, slung it over her shoulder and glanced back at the rest of us. "I don't know about you girls, but I've got a good feeling about this one," she said with the winningest smile yet seen this iteration.

Fuck me. That probably jinxed it.

()~~()

And we were off. Walpy wasn't particularly susceptible to melee attacks, so primary DPS fell upon Mami and me. I first pressed pause, then opened with a salvo which was fairly standard at this point. Several, and I fucking stress several, FIM-92 Stinger missiles, mindfully appropriated from multiple nearby JSDF armories, were fired at the target's center of mass. Time freezes have a tendency to fuck with the infrared guidance system, so I have to be marginally careful when aiming these things. Next, and this was a relatively new addition, I had three M270 MLRS artillery vehicles set up around the inlet roughly 120 degrees apart from each other. The effect is an encircling barrage of surface-to-air missiles, each bearing a hefty payload. As a closer to firing solution No. 1, I drove a bus loaded with explosives off a makeshift ramp, outfitted with a two-stage rocket, straight into the bitch's face.

Then I pressed play.

For just a moment, everything was calm as the innumerable projectiles streaked towards their target. The only noise was the deafening roar of rapidly burning petroleum fuel. Then it became very bright, much brighter than a midday sun. It all went up at once. It was one conglomerate explosion, and it was blinding. Half a moment later, the ground shook in accompaniment with a terrific blast that seemed to emanate from everywhere. The bright light changed from white to yellow to orange to red and then to black, as the boom echoed and degraded to a low rumble.

It's not like I'd gotten excited or anything, but Walpy was still there, mocking me.

The other girls were taken aback for a moment, then quickly got to work. Mami didn't just have muskets, though she used them liberally, she'd also set up a line of cannons along the levee. She was never not firing her rifles in every direction, but when she passed by her battery, she somehow integrated fuse lighting into her movements. It was flawless, and I was hella fucking jealous.

Kyouko and Sayaka were tasked with clearing adds. The familiars had descended upon us, giving the two of them something to sink their teeth into. To her credit, Kyouko was a god damned savant when it came to ending things' existences. Mami's movements were characterized with grace, whereas Kyouko was all brutal precision. The sneer on her face was that of a demon. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

But if Kyouko was a demon, Sayaka was Apollyon, the king of hell, the lord of the eternally damned, the speaker of the pit. I only looked at her for a moment, but I immediately wished I hadn't. Blue was pure; it was the color of justice. Her dress wasn't blue anymore. It was the richest dripping, bloody crimson. I didn't think these things bled like that. I didn't think these things actually had blood. It was as though Sayaka's thirst for it had forced them to bleed when they wouldn't have otherwise. Diablo giveth and Diablo taketh away.

She was also laughing like a maniac. It seemed like she put every last ounce of her being into every swing. She wouldn't stop hacking for anything until her target was thrice dead. Though several familiars nipped at her legs and crawled onto her back, she paid them no mind until it was their turn. I think she was fucking eating some of them too.

All in all, everything was going pretty well.

Mami and I kept chipping away at the thing. I made frequent time stops to unload additional munitions, but I was running out. I was also running out of grief seeds. As a result, I needed to be more conservative with my time stops.

Through the din, I heard a spirited "Tiro Finale!" Which was either super optimistic or completely desperate. Knowing Mami, it was probably both. She kept doing it too. I heard at least three or four more of them over the next minute. At this point, she oughta be shouting 'Tiro Continuum' or some shit. There was no finality to any of this.

Of course, it was all fun and games until Walpy started throwing buildings at us.

Buildings aren't easy to dodge. It's very difficult to gauge the area of effect for something so large. Most of my agility is a product of my time magic. I could stop time and jump out of the way of an office building at my twelve o' clock, but as soon as I reenter the normal flow of time, another building will be flying my way. I could do that all day, but I'd pretty quickly drain my soul gem. Walpurgisnacht is smart and adapts to her enemies. My best bet was to dodge these things live and save my time stops for when they'd count most.

In hindsight, maybe I could've warned the gang that there might be flying buildings involved. They were caught a bit off guard. I'm slightly practiced in this art by now, so there I was, dodging small businesses and firing off rocket launchers as I went. I looked over to Mami to check up on her.

Sometime's I agree with the twisted ethos of the universe. Frankly, Mami's use of her finishing move as just a nuke in her rotation seemed pretty sketchy and out of turn to me. I wasn't alone, it seemed. Walpy had gone and said "Fuck you", and the cosmos had called bullshit.

She'd just been in the middle of cartwheeling past her cannon line, lighting fuses and firing muskets as she went, in an effort to dodge an incoming insurance building. It wouldn't be enough, so she skillfully extended her yellow ribbon, using it as a grappling hook, and pulled herself backward out of harm's way. In doing so, she put herself into the path of another building which just barely missed her airborne body. Unfortunately, it didn't miss her head.

Shit. Fuck.

As I turned back to face my front, I realized I was about to go through a glass pane window. That was fine if I could exit the other side in a similar fashion. I burst through the window, shield first, and scanned for another window. There were none. All I saw was a gaping elevator shaft directly in front of me.

I hit the steel wall with my shield up and heard a disappointing crunch. I started to fall down the shaft. I couldn't see anything. I started sliding against the wall, as the building started tipping sideways. Even if I stopped time, I would still simply fall. My descent slowed. I could tell I was near the bottom. I curled into a ball and prepared for impact.

()~~()

A horrific shudder rocked the entire building. I stopped falling. We'd landed sideways.

I'd broken several bones. My shield hand was toast, a few ribs were cracked, I'd dislocated my right shoulder, I had a gash in my side where a piece of rebar had almost stuck me, and I likely had sustained plenty of damage to my internal organs. Add to that a concussion I'd just received, and the resulting headache.

I popped my shoulder back into place. It wasn't my first fucking rodeo. I did a time stop, stood up, and hobbled down the elevator shaft by the regrettably dim light of my soul gem. When I reached the bottom, I grabbed a few C4 charges out of my buckler and set them on what was now the back wall. I stood back, resumed time, and blew the charges.

Outside, very little time had passed. I could see Kyouko still slaying familiars like an auteur of murder. I heard Sayaka screaming on the wind "I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING! I CAN'T FUCKING FEEL ANYTHING!". Irrevocably damaged indeed. I saw her kneeling in a pool of blood, a jet black soul gem in hand. I saw Mami's headless body strewn about near her now-inactive battery. No projectiles were on their way to Walpurgisnacht. Most importantly, and most damning, I saw a pleasant rose colored flash from on high. Madoka had just contracted. Critical mission failure.

It was just a proof of concept anyway.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	5. As Regards Sayaka Miki

Madoka Kaname had gone nuclear and made a contract with Kyubey. Clearly, she'd evaluated the situation and decided we needed a substitution. From my position, I couldn't blame her.

She'd just watched Mami's head get sheared off by an apartment complex, I had just taken a skyscraper to the face, and Sayaka was literally turning into a witch in front of us. No projectiles were being made out to Walpurgisnacht anymore, as Mami was dead, Sayaka was about to be dead, and I was in no shape to do anything right now. The only person worth shit anymore was Kyouko Sakura, and that's not something I get to say very often.

I was drained. As I limped towards my comrades, I was still subconsciously prioritizing my actions as though they meant anything.

Sayaka was toast. Better to take her out now before she became a problem. Kyouko needed some backup, but first I needed to get some missiles back in the air. Beyond that...

I caught myself overthinking it. The game was already over.

I hobbled past Sayaka, who was still shrieking in agony, pulled out my Desert Eagle, and started firing sort of roughly in her direction. My first six shots all missed horrendously.

"Motherfucker. Just fucking hit the thing," I muttered, carefully lining up my last shot.

A thought struck me as I was executing my friend. What would it look like if Sayaka went witch mode right here? Who's side would she take? Would she be more or less effective against Walpurgisnacht in that form? All very interesting questions, but all fairly void at the moment.

Sayaka craned her neck in an unnatural fashion to look at me. Red tears streamed down her face. She laughed at me. She cackled and howled and everything else that could be described as putrid and evil.

"Why can't I be happy?" She uttered. "If I can't be happy, THEN NO ONE ELSE SHOULD BE—"

The sound of shattering glass filled the air, almost dwarfing the sound of the muzzle report which preceded it. Sayaka's eyes went dark as she fell to the ground, limp. Her soul gem irrevocably damaged.

"My sincerest apologies, Miki-san," I groaned apathetically. "Blammo, Bitch."

I tried chuckling to myself in triumph over finally landing a shot, but a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest reminded me that, actually, my ribcage was a fucking joke right now.

Through the din, I heard Kyouko calling out to me.

"Hey, you goth bitch, got a grief seed I can use?" She seemed to be momentarily clear of enemies. I time skipped my way over there, to at least appear semi-competent.

"I thought you were cutting back," I said as I flicked a grief seed towards her. A line I'd spent the whole walk over there devising.

"It's no biggie. I can quit whenever I want to," came the tired response. As she refreshed her soul gem, she gestured at Sayaka's body. "You guys have a good powwow over there?"

"Yeah really productive," I quipped. "No really. She was gonna turn into a... a fuckin' witch over there if I didn't..."

"That can happen?"

"That happens. It does."

We stood there for a moment, just not really sure what to do. We were two of a kind, sharing a foxhole and a smoke. Nothing meaningful was to be gained through any hypothetical action by either of us.

"So, what's the plan now, boss?" Kyouko asked.

"I figure it'll be over in just a sec. Don't worry about it."

"How's that?"

I suppressed a yawn, which undoubtedly would have been catastrophically painful, and murmured "Madoka's about to fuck this bitch up."

Concurrent with the words leaving my mouth, Madoka loosed her God Blow upon said bitch.

"The girl doesn't know a damn thing about moderation," I said as Walpy was annihilated in a maelstrom of violet. "I'll be seeing you then."

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?" Kyouko said, awestruck by the sudden destruction of our target. "What the fuck was that?"

"That was Madoka fucking it up again," I said. "I'll be resetting this timeline now."

"Holy shit," Kyouko said, panicked. "What does that mean for me, then? What happens to everything here? Does it branch off or some shit?"

Probably, but I actually had no fucking idea.

"Or some shit, yeah. Something like that," I said, turning my shield.

**(Attempt #28)**

It's a real good thing that going back in time undoes any bodily harm I've taken. Otherwise, well actually I don't think I'd have any fucking limbs left. Pretty sure I've lost each of them at least once or at least sustained enough damage to have them amputated.

It followed, then, that I wasn't aging. My body seemed to revert to exactly the state I was in when I first woke up in the hospital twenty-seven time loops ago. I wasn't getting any taller. I never had to trim my nails or my hair.

What troubled me, though it was evident no long-term physical changes were occurring, was that I still retained memories from previous attempts, and based on my knowledge of brain functions, those ought to be physical things too. There seemed to be a sort of wishy-washy eraser which selectively picked parts of me to reset and retained other portions when they were convenient.

It's not like I'm upset for lack of principles, but where the fuck is the line drawn, oh Father Time?

It was also possible that my memories were bound to my soul, which resided in my soul gem, but the condition of my soul also seemed to reset with every time loop. My soul gem could be utterly contaminated with despair, yet come out bright and shiny—at least as much as dark purple can get—when I spun my shield. So theoretically, my memories should've been washing away with it. I was still stumped.

()~~()

Sayaka had touched on something of a good talking point when she inquired as to why she couldn't be happy. Nobody really knew, and that really sucked, because it was super important. If you wanted to talk about the biggest issues I've been having making this shit work, you would talk about Mami losing her head, the girls forgetting their cell phones, and Sayaka becoming morbidly depressed.

The current mainstream behavioral model for Sayaka describes her actions as they relate to her relationship with Kyousuke. At first, she is upset because there's nothing she can do for the one she loves. This feeling of inadequacy drives her to contract and wish to heal his arm. After discovering that her body is now just a shell controlled by her soul gem, she sees herself as unfit to be Kyousuke's lover. She is thus unable to be with him.

So, either she is powerless to help him, or she is powerless to stop Hitomi from taking him from her. It's another catch-22, coined "The Zombie Paradox".

"Well, why does she need to frame the world in that fashion?" You might ask the logician. The logician shrugs and insists that is a question for a psychologist. The psychologist blathers on about how Sayaka's need to fix things is indicative of anal retentiveness, which is supported by her penchant for justice. This need for control extends to her body, and the mechanism of control is very important. The perceived loss of control as a result of repositioning the soul, and the subsequent mental breakdown, suggest she was fuckin' molested or something.

That's what the psychologist actually says. "Fuckin' molested or something." You decide the logician is much more reasonable, but you are now back at square one. Fuck you. Fuck me.

The one thing most mainline thinkers will agree on is that it's that blasted idiot Kyousuke who's wrecking everything. The critical consensus was, indeed, that Sayaka probably wouldn't have such a rough go of it with the violinist out of the picture. The main issue there, which was fervently acknowledged in many circles, was that the young musician boy wasn't set upon not existing anymore, or having not existed at all, ever. Presumably, the hapless cripple wasn't aware such a lucid, and readily soluble, workaround to the Zombie Paradox existed, and unfortunately, neither I nor the pundits were in the habit of schooling decrepit, half-witted shits on proper etiquette with respect to general existence and not being a little fucking bitch.

All that to say Sayaka needed to hit that, and hit it real hard.

As things currently stood, she wasn't gonna do that. She's been handed agreeable scenarios for snatching him up, on multiple occasions, but she never follows through with it. She's the gal everyone wants to be in the main paring, but who everyone knows is doomed from the beginning. It's not as though she should be, though. Nobody is supposed to lose to someone like Hitomi. No one is actually that low in the pecking order. Upon facing the slightest challenge, though, she cedes completely in an act of cowardly, cock-blocking capitulation.

I'd had enough of it.

()~~()

Our primary concern for this time loop was reconnaissance. The end goal was setting Sayaka up with the pitiful emo, so first, we needed to know what made him tick.

Regrettably, this meant I was going to try and score a date with him.

I say regrettably, but the word doesn't come nearly close enough to describing how I felt about it. Oh my fucking god. This was the last and final thing I ever wanted to do, but it seemed I needed to reorder my schedule.

Madoka took me to the nurse's office on my first day of school. Not because I faked swooning over my heart condition, but because I was so very distraught over what I needed to do that I was veritably ill. The nurse asked what was wrong with me, and perhaps as a way of affirming my own existence, I replied, "Ma'am, nothing's wrong with me. I'm the only thing in this world that's right." Only an act of desperate and ruthless vanity such as this would keep me alive.

I retched in the bathroom, alone. When I looked in the mirror, I could still recognize my face, and that would do me well for now.

"Come on, bitch," I said, sneering at myself before dousing my face in water. "Get your fuckin' ass in gear."

And I did, one could argue. Not at any great length, or with any remarkable degree of efficacy, but one could argue, and I did. I was fine. I was just fucking fine.

()~~()

"Ooh. Do you mind if I tag along? There's a couple CD's I'm interested in checking out." I chirped. Madoka and Sayaka glanced at me like I was a toddler asking to get on the big kid ride.

"Sure, Akemi-san, is it?" Madoka replied cheerfully.

My attempt at making friends was so patently phoned in that I was surprised the girls even heard me, given their propensity for not having phones.

"CD's huh?" Sayaka said, arms crossed. "Are you one of those purist hipsters?"

"That's funny," I quipped. "Because really, digital music is a huge rip-off. If you listen to-"

"Oh, shove off. Nobody actually gives a shit about bitrate compression. Music is music. Que sera sera."

"Look, bitch. Bitrate compression is already fucking atrocious, but that's not even the fucking half of it. The things they do to dynamic range is a whole 'nother fuckin'-"

"Geez! Calm the fuck down. I'm just—just yankin' your chain. I have a CD collection too," Sayaka sputtered, clearly uncomfortable with the crops she'd sown.

"I got kinda worked up there," I said.

I did not apologize, and that was intentional.

()~~()

Madoka gleefully busied herself listening to samples of whatever the hell it was she listened to, while the big girls hung around the vintage section. We knew what we were into, and we weren't afraid to stand next to displays of these things to show our refined tastes.

I symbolically stood in front of a rack of CDs from J-Pop duo Wink. Unquestionably the queens of the early nineties. They nihilistically combined the hit churning efficacy of ABBA with the raw musical talent of, well ABBA. Then they faded into obscurity, poor gals. Grunge wasn't the only casualty of the mid-nineties. Their choreography was pretty fuckin' rough though.

Sayaka was eyeing a copy of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 3 performed by Henryk Szeryng.

"Originally recorded in 1971. And here's a nice, modern, flashy re-release. He was the first to record that shit, you know?" I said.

"Yeah, I fucking know," Sayaka muttered, clenching her fists. "I wish the cover art wasn't so fucking tacky. Other than the vinyl though, this is all there is. This shit."

"I'd be glad to snatch it at all. You're lucky they even went to the trouble."

"Oh, fuck you. Am I not allowed to complain about the numbskulls that thought this looked, in any way, not horrendous?"

"You could spring for the vinyl," I said, egging her on.

"Even if I could find the vinyl release, I wouldn't shell out for it unless I had a turntable that fit in my pocket." She sighed and picked up the CD, revolted by the heinous attempt at a sleek looking design. "2000 must've been a fuckin' clusterfuck."

()~~()

Sayaka invested a lot of time and energy into this child. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, everyone could use a pet project, but her returns were abysmal at best and critically in the red at worst. Even so, for some intangible reason, she seemed fulfilled by the arrangement. Today she went to his hospital room, listened to her Paganini CD with him, and then just left. They exchanged all of a dozen or so words. She was okay with that, I guess, but that wasn't gonna fuckin' cut it.

I dropped by an hour or so later.

"E-Excuse me. Is this K-Kamijou-san's room?" I muttered, hovering in the doorway.

Kyousuke looked over at me with his dark brooding eyes.

"Yes. How can I help you?"

"Then you're... Kamijou-san?"

"Yes."

At this point, I was practically satirizing my character's inefficacies. He didn't get it, but that was fine. Nobody got it. It was for my benefit only. Fuck me, what the hell was I doing?

"I-I'm a friend of Miki-san's," I said. "P-Pardon me! My name is Akemi Homura. Pleased to meet you."

He cracked a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless.

"It's alright. I'm Kamijou Kyousuke. It's good to meet you Akemi-san."

"W-Well, Sayaka-chan left something here, so she asked me to retrieve it for her." An outright fabrication. "Would it be alright if I looked around for it?"

"Of course," he said, chuckling. "I don't mind at all."

Boy oh boy. I knew I was leading him into this on purpose, but the amount of superiority he clearly felt over me, especially considering he was being put upon by a stranger while he lay crippled in his hospital bed, was incredible.

That aside, we were in. Time for phase two.

"I'm sure it's around here somewhere," I muttered nervously. "Perhaps it's under here," I said, moving towards the bed.

I was a dauntless bitch, and I came into this hospital room without a plan. I made up my excuse on the spot. I actually hadn't even forethought invoking Sayaka as my friend. It should come as no surprise, then, that I spent a good deal of time under Kyousuke's bed trying to think of something Sayaka might have forgotten. Meanwhile, I decided to stall.

"Sayaka-chan tells me you're a violinist."

"I was, but that was before..." His voice trailed off. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was holding up his wounded hand to the sunlight streaming through the window so he could only see the silhouette. He was also squinting, maybe pretending the bandage wasn't there, remembering the good times. There might have been a single vainglorious tear slowly making its way down his cheek, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

"I see... I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to bring up any bad feelings," I said softly. "It's good that you still listen to classical music though. There's no sense in giving up hope."

"I only listen to it because Sayaka-san makes me do it."

I emerged from under the bed and looked inquisitively at Kyousuke.

"Are you saying you don't enjoy the music anymore?"

"How can I enjoy it any longer?" He said, being patently coy. "How could I, when I may never be able to play again? How could I bear to listen to it knowing my one true passion will always be staring in my reach— _fuck_." The curse was not vocalized, he mouthed it in abject disappointment. He'd been waiting for a very long time to deliver this line. "That my one true passion will always be staring me in the face, but forever out of reach?"

Shit. It was worse than I thought it was going to be. I was a couple self-pitying zingers away from slitting my fucking wrists right here in the hospital.

"Why haven't you told Sayaka that?" I asked. "She loves listening to music with you Kamijou-kun!" The slight shift in honorifics was intentional.

"Sayaka... Well..."

Fuck.

"Do you not enjoy spending time with her?" I said.

"Of course, I do. How could I not?" He said, staring through the ceiling, through the sky and the stars, into sweet eternal oblivion. "She means well. She just couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through."

"Perhaps she would understand if you tried telling her."

"Perhaps, but maybe she would become upset with me instead. That's not something I want."

Well actually, that was fairly well reasoned. Cowardly as all fuck, but well-reasoned for a coward.

"Maybe you could suggest another type of music. One you could both enjoy," I said, rifling through my bag. "Here, you can borrow this!" I said, thrusting a copy of 'Cheap Trick at Budokan' towards him.

He took it gingerly with his good hand and turned the cover so he could see it. "Oh," he said, having nothing clever to respond with.

"I-It's one of my f-favorites," I said, turning up the gas on the stuttering. Because a demure middle-schooler, such as myself, ought to be embarrassed to so brazenly assert their interests, right?

"I see," Kyousuke responded as he examined the case.

"Perhaps the two of you will enjoy it as well. Then you won't have to bear your passion staring you in your reach—or your face, I mean!" I said, echoing his previous blunder for no particular reason.

It didn't register. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

" _Get it?_ " I muttered almost inaudibly, before slamming the palm of my hand into my face with intent to harm. With the intent to break my glasses. They didn't break, the sturdy bastards.

I faked getting called by Sayaka who told me she'd found the thing she thought she'd left at the hospital. I needed to get the hell out of there before I did anything irreparable to my body.

()~~()

"It's time to take out the trash!" Mami yelled, smattering bullets every which way as she danced around Charlotte's lair.

'It's time to take out the trash' was a pretty common utterance at this stage. In fact, all her battle cries were pretty set in stone, at least preceding the Charlotte fight. Beyond that, they become less predictable. If you will, the limit-of-linearity for our 'Mami Tomoe One-Liner Calibration Curve' only extends out to Charlotte. It's quite safely asserted though, at least within a ninety-five percent confidence interval, that these post-Charlotte zingers will be just as shitty as the old ones.

For this cycle, getting to a Sayaka contract ASAP was optimal, so we were gonna go for a dead Mami route. This didn't involve a fuckton of meddling, but I wanted to be there to make sure nothing fishy happened, and by fishy, I meant Mami not getting eaten.

While she duked it out, I was doing some very important scheming in my notebook. Namely, I was blocking out what the hell to do about Kyousuke and shit. Okay, I was making a bullet-pointed list outlining a hypothetical perfect date. All of this was important though.

"TIRO FINALE!" Mami shouted.

If we went to the beach, I would have to buy a swimsuit, 'cause I didn't have one of those fuckin' things. I could only hope my tastes lined up with his. With Kyousuke's.

Charlotte sprung back towards Mami in a very dramatic fashion, while everyone held their breaths.

I've seen all of the movies, all of the ones that were showing during this period, so I guess I could suggest a good one. What of Kyousuke though? What kind of films was  _he_  into? What if he wasn't a movie person at all? What would I do then?

"NOM NOM NOM," grunted the witch as she gleefully gobbled the remains of a former magical girl.

If all goes well, do I put out? Fuck, wait a minute. This wasn't even a real thing. What was I thinking?

Charlotte turned her attention to the two girls shivering in the corner. Oh right. Fuck. Somebody's actually gotta kill the bitch now.

I leaped quickly out of my hiding spot from on high, executing a perfect—well a swan dive anyway, and turned my buckler, stopping time. I fired a Deagle mag into Charlotte's back, just to get her attention, and then resumed the flow of time.

Charlotte was immediately interested in the source of the new wounds and performed an impressive 180-degree lunge at my freefalling frame. Her mouth opened incredibly wide and enveloped me whole. It seemed like a good place to stop time.

Actually, this was a pretty neat method of taking Charlotte out. Up till now, I'd been relying on brute force essentially. Really ugly stuff. This had an element of showmanship to it. It made the audience anxious, unsure if I would emerge. Then I would pop out and take a bow while the witch went to ribbons.

"Shit, that sounds cool" I muttered while throwing a bunch of explosives down Charlotte's throat.

()~~()

"What happened?" Asked a dazed and newly conscious Sayaka.

We were standing on a pedestrian overpass, as was often the case, and I had just retrieved Sayaka's soul gem after Madoka chucked it into traffic.

Kyouko seemed to be able to connect the dots the fastest.

"Are you telling me our bodies are just dead husks?" She huffed, grabbing Kyubey by the scruff of his neck. "What did you do to me, you bastard?"

"I merely placed your soul into a vessel that's more compact and easier to protect. Who knew you humans would be so picky about the placement of your souls?" He said cheekily, looking very much like a helpless cat as he did.

"That's awful!" Cried Madoka. "It's just terrible!"

"Madoka, that's redundant," I muttered.

"Homura-chan!" She yelled despairingly.

Sayaka shook her head and looked around, her inquiry still unsatisfied.

"Can someone tell me what the fuck happened?"

()~~()

"Sayaka's in love with this guy. You know it as well as I do," I said, placing another strip of duct tape over a restrained Hitomi Shizuki's mouth. "So, here's the thing—and you are too, right? Thought so. So, for some God fucking damned reason, she won't level with this ass-hat. Do you know what that does to me?"

Hitomi grunted and wriggled against her restraints. Her emerald eyes wide open.

"Don't worry, you weren't expected to answer that," I said, hoisting her petite frame into a supply closet. "What that does to me, is make saving Madoka really fucking difficult. Now I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out."

I took a deep breath. Hitomi squealed quite aggressively.

"So, when Sayaka contracts, and she does most all of the time, she fixes the kid's arm. That being done, Kamijou-kun can then rejoin society. This makes him susceptible to outside interaction. Namely,  _you_." I pulled out my Deagle and started twirling it.

Hitomi's eyes became as wide as saucers.

"You see this? This is pretty fuckin' impressive, huh?" I ostentatiously twirled my handgun. "See the trick is—well fuck. I don't really know how to explain it, you know? I mean, it's sort of like a hula hoop, except it's around your finger. So, if you can imagine..."

I stopped as I realized what I was doing.

"Shit. What am I doing? I'm not gonna kill you, Hitomi. I mean, I thought about it, but killing you would only make this whole thing more complicated. Relax." I put the gun away as a show of good faith. "Honestly, I'm just putting you away for a bit while I handle things. I can't really afford you interfering right now."

Hitomi whimpered. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

"Shit, look at you. You were scared to death! You probably wet yourself sitting there," I said.

Her face suddenly flushed bright red.

"Oh, fuck—shit—look I didn't mean it. I won't fuckin' tell anybody I swear to God!"

Hitomi started crying in earnest as she tried to turn to hide her face.

"Alright then. See ya," I said, closing the door.

()~~()

Right now, there wasn't a person in all of Mitakihara who could've used a cup of coffee more than Sayaka Miki. Only coffee, on and on without end, would sate her deficiencies precisely. I didn't quite have that, but I did have a triple shot espresso from her favorite café.

Yes, she could use this caffeine more efficiently and with less waste than just about anyone, but she wasn't keen on drinking it at all. She simply sat across from me, hunched over, staring listlessly through the floor, through the ground, through the earth, and past the stars into bitter eternal oblivion. They were perfect for each other.

"You should drink that shit. You'll feel a lot better if you do," I said.

No response.

I was taking advantage of never getting fat by eating a parfait larger than my face. I'm sure it did nothing for me in terms of adding sincerity to my counsel, but I don't think it made any difference in this case.

"I heard Kyousuke's coming to school tomorrow," I said, watching her eyelids flutter as I uttered the name. "You gonna say hi or something?"

She shook her head despondently. I was unsatisfied.

"Well, why not? I'm sure he'd be glad to see you and all."

She said nothing.

"Look—jeez. I know—we all know—that you're in love with him," I started. "And now he's all better, right? What's stopping you from getting in there and shit?"

Sayaka picked up her espresso and downed it in one gulp, then looked up at me and said:

"I can't talk to him anymore. How can I expect him to love me when I'm this...  _thing_? What right do I have to love anyone when I'm like this?"

She didn't blink, and she didn't break eye contact.

God damn, that was fucking wicked.

"What do you mean when you say that?" I countered. "What is this  _thing_  that you are now?"

"I'm a... a zombie" She muttered quietly, looking back down.

"Yeah, I know, hon. Look, I'm one of those too, and I still love _things_ ," I said, pointedly scarfing down my parfait. "I mean people too. I still love a person—people." I really sucked at this. Sayaka looked like she was about to cry. "Humor me for a second," I said.

"What?" She said, gazing nowhere in particular.

"If you weren't a magical girl, would you confess to Kamijou-san?"

"If I weren't a magical girl, he would still be injured. I'm sure he thought I was awful, bringing him those CD's, making him listen to them all the time. I was so selfish. There's no way he would've accepted me then." She paused melodramatically. "Why can't I be happy?"

"Ah, yes. The Zombie Paradox."

"Sorry?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. "Let's say he recovered, but you had nothing to do with it. What about then?"

Sayaka looked at me, somewhat confused, but it did seem like she was considering it. It was as though, underneath her ashen façade, this was the scenario she was fixated on. What if there had been a way to save Kyousuke without sacrificing her soul? Such a gargantuan 'what if' it was. Eventually, she composed herself.

"That's ridiculous. What point is there in a question like that?" She said flatly.

"Non-denial denial!" I said excitedly. "That's a non-denial denial, and I'll take it!"

I energetically stood up, slapped down some cash, and exited the booth in one swift motion, knocking over my parfait in the process.

"Shit," I said, before darting out of the café.

()~~()

Kyousuke-kun was fucking easy. It only took a couple compliments to soften him up for the big question. When I asked him if he'd like to go see a movie, he didn't seem to have any issue with it. He just said yes.

The movie was fine. I picked one I thought he would like, but I could only hope that he did. Afterward, we went on a walk along the promenade by the river. We did not hold hands, but I suppose that was only natural.

"D-Did you enjoy the movie, K-Kamijou-kun?" I stuttered. For some reason, the bashfulness came easier than usual this time.

"It was good," He said coolly. "Why did you choose that one in particular? If I might ask."

"W-Well, I was trying to pick something you would like. D-Did I mess up?"

"No. You made a good choice, Akemi-san," He said. "Please, call me Kyousuke."

Shit, shit, shit. This was affecting material.

"O-Oh, great. I'm glad. Y-You can call me H-Homura if you'd like."

"I think I will. Thank you, Homura."

My chest was about to explode. I needed a distraction.

"Oh, look at that sunset!" I exclaimed.

When Kyousuke turned around, I did a transformation and stopped time. I needed a moment to re-center myself.

I was not in love with this boy. I was not in love with Kamijou-san. I was just being an idiot. I grabbed my notebook and opened to the inside cover. There was appended a picture I'd taken of Madoka a while ago. She was on the boardwalk on the way to the middle school, and a multitude of perfectly timed cherry blossoms was framing her. She was winking and giving the peace sign with both hands.

Yeah.

"I'm gay for this bitch," I said.

I was gay for that bitch.

I resumed time, having calmed down, and came up beside Kyousuke.

"I see." He said. "What a pictureckse— _fuck_ —what a picturesque sunset, indeed."

I ignored his bumbling and asked what I'd been meaning to the whole time.

"Kyousuke, why did you agree to go on a date with me?"

He kept staring at the sunset even as he answered me.

"Because you asked."

That made sense.

()~~()

There was this abandoned laundromat in the old factory district that I'd always thought would make a dope ass evil lair. I think the area had been a commercial district in the past, and when things got rezoned the laundromat got left behind. I guess it was supposed to be demolished at some point, but the fact that it was still here was a testament to how hella-fuckin' killer it was as a secret base.

"I'm convinced that she would've sprung for him, given the chance. If the conditions were right, she would've gone for it, whole hog," I said to a bound and gagged Hitomi and a very attentive Kyubey. "And given my experiences, he would've said yes."

"It is interesting that humans are so fixated on what could have been made different in the past. How the constant flow of time vexes you so greatly," Kyubey said, clearly very proud of himself.

"Well,  _I'm_  a bit obsessive over it because I can fuckin' change it. That's what I can do."

"Ah. I knew there was something very peculiar about you, Akemi-san."

"The problem is 'The Zombie Paradox'," I said, ignoring him. "And I could go over that, but that would be retreading old ground. The objective, anyway, is making the conditions right for Sayaka to approach."

"I get the sense that this monologue is not for my benefit," Kyubey stated.

"Fuck no," I confirmed. "Here, take this and... and feed her some, will ya?" I said, chucking a box of pizza at his feet. "She's probably fucking starving over there."

Kyubey looked at the box with unblinking eyes, considering his next move very carefully. I continued, uncaring of his dilemma.

"So how do we get Kyousuke's arm to heal, for one, but keep Sayaka's soul intact? Well, there's a couple things to be considered. One, is modern medicine capable of fixing it? Generally, I've gathered that the outlook is pretty pessimistic. That's not hardly something we can count on. How else could we heal it? Another magical girl, perhaps? How would we convince them to use their wish on Kyousuke?"

I couldn't tell which was more amusing. The fact that, meanwhile, Kyubey had willingly complied with my request, or the manner in which he was attempting to fulfill it.

He had dragged the box over to the poor gal and determined that he first needed to remove the duct tape from her mouth. So, he did that, then he opened the box. Clearly, he wasn't sure how to proceed, because he just stared at the open box for several seconds before looking up at Hitomi and asking what to do next. The instructions likely weren't clear enough or I was giving Hitomi way too much credit because he took a slice in both paws and promptly slapped it against her face. It then became a desperate game in which Kyubey kept trying to stuff the pizza into Hitomi's mouth while she just kept chewing and hoping she could latch onto something.

They got better as time went on, but they never passed for proficient in any sense.

She was being such a darling too. She hadn't screamed for help or anything. Probably because she was so hungry she didn't want to waste any energy on it. It would only have been symbolic screaming anyway, and we all knew that. Smart girl.

"Incubator," I said, crouching in front of the supply closet.

He looked back at me, one paw halfway inside Hitomi's mouth.

"Yes?"

"What sort of potential do you sense in this girl?" I asked.

He looked back at Hitomi's tear streamed, tomato sauce covered face and considered the question thoughtfully.

"There are certainly some latent energies present. Above background levels to be sure."

"That's a yes, right?"

"That's an arbitrary assessment, Akemi-san," He said belligerently. "But, yes. I've done with less in the past."

Hitomi gulped down what was in her mouth and sputtered in a raspy voice:

"W-What are you t-talking about?"

"God. Here give her this," I said, grabbing a cola and handing it to Kyubey.

They tried again, and again, and cola got all over her school uniform, but at least some of it made it into her mouth.

She cleared her throat and tried again.

"What's this about Sayaka-chan, and Kamijou-kun, and this 'Zombie Paradox', and me, and latent energies?" She asked.

I looked at her with some small degree of sympathy.

"It's nothing. I just have a really fucking stupid idea," I said.

I turned my shield 180 degrees and started over.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	6. Scandinavian Defense

**(Attempt #29)**

 

The main problem with everything, in the most general sense possible, was that things didn't just happen because I wanted them to. If we were being principled about this, if fate were to be principled about this, almost everything I've attempted up till now ought to have been tossed out up front, but here we were.

Because, right; of course, nobody and nothing carried the prestigious burden of principles anymore; I'm sure fate got tired of itself ages ago. I would know. I was practically on the Temporal Judiciary Board at this point, and nobody gave a shit anymore. The guardians of time and space were just pissing in the wind, resigned to the fact that we were all sons of bitches now.

So, what did I know about grief seeds? A lot. At least I thought I did. Up until a week or so ago, I was a Goddamn expert, and then: What did I know about grief seeds?

This was a joke though. This was clearly just an off day.

Central Dogma is thus: Magical girl is contracted, magical girl fights witches, magical girl claims grief seeds to stave off the despair, grief seeds are recycled by the Incubators for thermodynamically impossible energy, magical girl despairs, and lastly, her soul gem becomes a grief seed giving birth to a new witch. The cycle is complete. The whole process is completely fucking wack because it gives rise to the idea that somehow the universe isn't a closed system, but that would be the most trivial concession I made all day.

If this were a proper RPG, you could make an argument that Hitomi Shizuki was a healer. Hand-wavy at best, because she wasn't really healing, she was buffing magic power. There's never really a class dedicated to that. Maybe a bard, I wasn't sure. I was never one of the cool nerdy kids back in school. I didn't have much of a schooling at all, actually.

Hitomi held a dense reference book in her left hand and a brightly glowing verdant wand in the other.

"Melancholy spirit of grief!" She intoned, "I summon thee and command you to honor our contract!"

A surge of power emanated from her wand as she waved it flamboyantly, and then, here was a fucking grief seed. She'd made one.

Honestly, Charlotte was fucked, and she knew it. We were all fucked.

**()~~()**

It had started with a really fucking stupid idea. If the problem was Sayaka not getting what she wanted and being too mentally unstable to deal with that, then give her what she wants, or find somebody else to do the job for you, or both.

The problem with everything, generally speaking, is that nothing ever happens just because I want it to.

How the fuck was I supposed to orchestrate Hitomi getting contracted instead of Sayaka? I wasn't stupid. I knew where the divergence point needed to occur, and that was at the music store Madoka and her best bitch forever visit after school one day. Conventional logic says that if I get the pieces in the right place, the game will play itself. Although, honestly, if that's the line I was getting from conventional logic, I might wanna check to see if the folks at the help desk were all alive and sober. The problem with this reasoning isn't the laissez-faire approach to endgame strategy, but rather that I likely couldn't get the pieces in the right place to begin with. Asking me to put Hitomi in the music store with Madoka in place of Sayaka was asking a light-squared bishop to jump ship and start traveling on the dark squares, just far less pointless and stupid.

Then again, I'm a fucking genius.

**()~~()**

Step one: Abduct Sayaka Miki.

This had to occur after she'd made an agreement to go to the music store with Madoka that afternoon. Otherwise, it would be quite senseless and pointedly rude.

Something I learned the hard way, the first time around, is that when you're smothering someone with a chloroform rag, it takes a good while before they go under. Like, some seconds. None of that instantaneous KO shit. You've gotta stand there, keeping constant pressure on your victim's face, and just take whatever's thrown at you for the entire duration, and people can be downright difficult when you're interfacing with them in this fashion. I've had my share of near misses when it comes to this shit, so sometimes, it's better to just whack people in the head with a driver.

In this case, I deemed that treatment to be sufficient.

Step two: Acquire Madoka Kaname's phone.

I spent way too much time figuring out how to do this, and by way too much time I mean any at all. I actually looked up some tutorials on how to swipe from people's pockets. I learned how to misdirect. I even was considering practicing on a real human being before throwing my glasses on the floor and stomping on them repeatedly as I realized I could just stop time for this. I swiped it from her during lunch.

Step three: Lure Madoka to the music store.

This was easier said than done, but nonetheless, it was still incredibly easy.

"E-Excuse me, um, Kaname-san?" I said to her in the hallway during a break. "Your friend, Miki-san, wanted me to tell you she was going to be late to your, uh, your meeting after school. She said she'll meet up with you later."

Madoka looked at me with a mixture of confusion and genuine pity. Which was fine, because it wasn't the worst appraisal I received on a daily basis.

"Thanks for telling me, Akemi-san, is it?"

I nodded demurely. Madoka clapped her hands once. A sort of self-affirming action of hideous vanity.

"Alright then, Akemi-san. Have you been getting along with Sayaka-chan, then?"

"You could say we've become acquainted, yes," I replied, acutely aware that Sayaka was currently bound, gagged, hopefully unconscious, locked in a supply closet in an abandoned laundromat in the old factory district.

"Oh, wonderful. Sayaka-chan is always so nice to newcomers."

This was surely a genius bit of satire on Madoka's part. That or someone had to be feeding her lines. This was too rich.

Step four: Put Hitomi into action.

Positioning a body such that it looks as though it's just fallen down a set of stairs might not seem like a complicated task, but I honestly didn't have a frame of reference for this. Would she be facing up or down? Left, or right? Where should her appendages lie? Should there be any visible lesions or contusions? I spent over an hour of stopped time on this.

In the hallway, after class, there she stood, Hitomi, as vulnerable as ever. With precisely tuned melodrama, I cried out to her, "Shizuki-san!"

Her emerald hair whipped and wailed, as a strong gust of wind might do, as she turned to face the source of the distressed call. Sincere concern filled her similarly hued eyes. Filled them to the brim and beyond.

"Something terrible has happened to Miki-san!" I said, after an indulgent beat or two.

Now, Hitomi, I hadn't actually met yet in this timeline, but I get the sense that I sold the situation so well that she didn't really care.

"Oh, heavens! She's fallen down the stairs!" Hitomi exclaimed as we looked upon Sayaka's limp body from on high.

"Yes! That's the conclusion I came to as well!" I corroborated. "A logical one! Based on her positioning, a logical conclusion!" Damn, I was having a rough time maintaining an illusion of emergent concern while simultaneously patting myself on the back for constructing a convincing pose. Didn't really matter. Hitomi was halfway down the stairs already, as she would be.

I'd crushed up a few—well, several—Ambien pills and snuck them into Sayaka's lunch this morning. So, try as she might, no way was Hitomi gonna fucking shake that bitch awake. She was out. Completely out.

"Sayaka-san!" She shouted desperately, trying to get her friend to stir.

It was to no avail, and she was beginning to weep.

I wasn't totally a sadist, yet, so causing needless distress upon undeserving third parties was something I wasn't necessarily comfortable with. Butting in with the next set piece was paramount.

"I'll go get the school nurse!" I announced. "You stay with her!"

If all had gone according to plan, my work was essentially done. I kept an eye on Madoka's phone while on my way to the nurse's office, and sure enough, within minutes I was receiving a call from Hitomi. I let it go to voicemail. Success.

I returned to the scene of the crime with the nurse in tow, who immediately took charge of the situation. Within moments, she'd determined she was not equipped for the task at hand and had EMT's on the line immediately.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" I asked coyly.

The nurse was visibly alarmed by the fact that Sayaka wouldn't wake up. She'd also discovered some significant head trauma, so it wasn't entirely unlikely that Sayaka had suffered a severe concussion, and perhaps wouldn't wake for a good long time. Nevertheless, she put on a brave smile and said, "I'm sure she'll be fine."

Hitomi was muttering nervously to herself. "Oh, dear. Why does she always forget to bring her phone?"

I decided to take a deductive leap, in favor of hastening the dialogue.

"Are you talking about Madoka?" I asked. "She was going to meet Sayaka at some music store, I heard."

Hitomi gasped. "I know the place!" She exclaimed. She jerked, as though to start sprinting towards the door, then she did an about turn to face me again.

"If you could, please tell Saotome-sensei that I won't be able to attend calligraphy club today. My apologies." She gave a polite bow and then scampered off, arms flailing about as though she'd never run in her life.

"Fuckin' A," I muttered after she'd left.

"What was that?" The nurse asked from behind me.

Shit. I'd forgotten about the damn nurse.

"It wasn't anything. It was nothing. I didn't even—well, I said something but it wasn't what you thought it was... Probably," I said waving my hand dismissively.

"Yeah, okay," the nurse said, going back to checking Sayaka's vitals.

Unable to vocalize my deep satisfaction, I relished in my absolute victory internally. I'd won. I'd put the pieces in the right place, and was eagerly awaiting the game to play itself.

**()~~()**

Madoka had gone ahead and started browsing through her favorite section, the same generic J-pop she always looked at. By the time Hitomi arrived, she was halfway through a ClariS album and was looking around nervously as if thinking, ' _If no one's stopping me, I guess I'm gonna ride this thing out until it's over.'_

Fortunately, her conscience was preserved when Hitomi burst into the store and made a beeline for the CD racks. It tickled me to think that Madoka's initial thoughts upon seeing her friend rushing towards her were possibly,  _'I've been made.'_

"Madoka!" Hitomi shouted, even though she only stood a few feet away from her, "Something terrible has happened to Sayaka-san!"

Now, Hitomi was flustered, to be certain, but this was probably the worst way she could've handled the situation. If I'm Madoka, Sayaka is dead, ripped to pieces, eaten, and then fucking violated by like ten rabid dogs. It most certainly didn't help that, upon request for clarification, a thoroughly winded Hitomi could only pant heavily for several seconds.

"She's fallen down the stairs," Hitomi said after finally catching her breath, "and she won't wake up." This was also highly alarming, but what could I say? That was the going theory as far as Hitomi was aware, and I guess it was less frightening than what had actually happened to her.

Oh shit, right, this was my cue.

Kyubey, the bastard, was lying in wait observing Madoka, his quarry. I needed to go agitate things to make sure we got the ball rolling on this whole contract thing, and by agitate things, I meant beat the fucker to within an inch of his life.

I like shooting clay pigeons, or more generally, shooting things. I also like golf, or more accurately, I like to hit things with my golf club. So, if there's ever an opportunity to do both of those things at once, I have to jump on it.

I found Kyubey loitering in his usual spot, hanging around near the utilities on some condemned floor, prancing about the plumbing. God knows what he thought he was accomplishing in here, but to each his own, I suppose. Whatever it may have been, it was over now, because it was now time for my game.

The rules were simple but robust. The goal was to launch the Incubator into the air and then land a shot on him with my Deagle. I could not rely on time stops, because that would be unfair. I was allowed only to freeze time to get into position, so as to not arouse suspicion. The manner in which I launched him into the air was allowed to be flexible, to keep things interesting, so long as it didn't involve the assistance of automated machinery or another person. It was easy to learn, impossible to master, and devilishly enjoyable.

After stopping time precisely so that Kyubey stood in the middle of the corridor, with a long, clear stretch behind him, I got up behind him with my driver. I did a couple practice swings and then restarted time.

The hairs on Kyubey's back stood on end as he realized he'd been had, but before he could react, the face of my driver slammed into his side crunching his ribcage and sending him flying down the hallway, alone in the dark. I dropped my club and drew my handgun in one practiced motion. Fighting against the speed of gravity, I lined up my shot and fired a single round, with the hope that it would catch the ball of fluff as it arced gracefully through the air. Unfortunately, I'd hooked it pretty bad, and actually, my real-time aim was fairly shit.

I didn't hit him. I didn't even come close to hitting him, but I got that rat bastard running.

He scampered away, into the dark recesses, blending in with the pipes. To scamper is to know fear. Only those who know their seconds are numbered truly understand what it means to scamper.

Anyway, I'd made my point, and he was likely ESPing at the top of his lungs for Madoka to come save him. Which, knowing Madoka, she would, and then she and Hitomi would get caught up in a labyrinth, and then—wait a minute.

I might've timed this wrong.

Any decent person, upon hearing news that their best friend had been tragically injured, would drop everything to go see them. Even if there was a weird voice in her head shouting out for help, Madoka wasn't gonna abandon Sayaka. Certainly not after Hitomi made it sound like she'd been molested by Hades and then fed to his giant three-headed hound, Cerberus.

This meant the two of them were probably about to head back to Mitakihara Middle School, which meant they would miss the labyrinth opening, which meant Hitomi wouldn't contract, which meant I needed to stop them.

Oh, bullshit.

If I couldn't bring the girls to the familiar, I needed to bring the familiar to the girls. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually needed to go looking for a witch's egg, but thank heavens for that weird grief seed GPS bullshit that came standard with my soul gem OS.

I ignored Kyubey for now, but knowing he was probably prowling around the future labyrinth entrance made him a good jumping off point. I found the direction of greatest signal amplitude and sprinted towards it. It was on this floor, further in the back. I vaulted and glided past obstacles like I knew what I was doing.

Vault. Springboard. Wall-run. Jump. Curl. Roll.

Fuck, that was cool.

My exertions brought me to a poorly lit section of some soon-to-be atrium. What I saw in the corner of the room, I immediately decided to write off as a total cosmic coincidence, because trying to think any deeper into it would have been painful and a little bit frightening.

A lone claw machine sat snugly against the wall, and inside, impaling a plush unicorn, was the fucking grief seed. I'm sure this wasn't on purpose. I'm sure this claw machine was here because some idiot fucking intern didn't know what to do with it. As for the grief seed, I guess the most charitable reading was that some familiar had dropped a seed in here for no particular reason. Certainly, it would be out of the question entirely that someone deliberately stabbed the poor horse with the thing. There were perfectly easy outs here.

Holy fuck, this had never happened before. Why the fuck was it stuck in a fucking claw machine?

Step five: Shit. Improvise or something. This was gonna be fucking ugly.

Thinking fast, I decided to shatter the glass with a swing of the driver. When I made contact, the head ricocheted off the pane, and vibrations racked the shaft and up through my arms. It was Plexiglass or something.

Plan B. Frag through the access hatch.

Actually, shit. That was a terrible idea. I'd probably destroy the grief seed, and that would likely unleash its power right here.

Plan C.

I scoffed at myself for even thinking it; the level of conceit was too damn high, but the easiest way I saw to grabbing this thing was by winning the claw game.

Bastard.

The unicorn was positioned above the drop box, near enough to seem reasonable. Roughly one and a half hands tall. The plan was to get one of the pincers just below the undercarriage of the horse and pull up while dragging back. Optimally, I'd lose a grip on it about halfway up, and the momentum would be enough for it to sail right into the box.

I ponied up some change and got to work.

I quickly maneuvered the claw above the unicorn, then nudged it slightly towards the box. I pressed the button. The claw descended. It latched onto the horse and began to ascend. As it did, I pulled the handle back.

It immediately slipped out. One and a half hands. Tiny middle-school girl hands.

I let go of the controls, took a step back, and prepared to reset the timeline.

Bitch.

I took a deep breath and deposited some more coins.

One more try.

There was a plastic hoop with a little tag attached to the ear. I positioned the claw such that one of the tines was lined up with the hoop. I calmly pressed the button. The claw descended. The hook slid beautifully into the hoop, and the claw began to ascend. It was set good. It was fucked.

As I carefully moved the claw towards the dropbox, I muttered grimly under my breath, "Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch."

I released the unicorn. It fell ungracefully into the box with an unceremonious  _thunk_.

"Bastard," I uttered triumphantly.

I grabbed the plushy out of the hatch and quickly stopped time. A brief look at the seed told me this fucker was ready to blow. My holding onto it, unfortunately, meant that it was still degrading.

I didn't exactly remember the route I took to get here, but even if I did, it wouldn't have been fast enough. There was only one egress that made any damn sense now. I jumped out the fuckin' window.

I leaped from the third story, catching a street lamp as I fell. I slid down the pole like a real-life firefighter.

A real firefighter.

Once on street level, I intercepted the route Madoka would've taken from the store back to school. How long had I been fiddling with that claw machine? A minute? Two? How far could they have gotten?

A couple blocks, turns out. These chicas weren't on the starting relay team, which was just as well because I was out of time. The grief seed glowed with a seething black aura, escaping through the numerous cracks in the sphere. I had maybe ten seconds.

I tucked the plushy under my arm and quickened my pace. Not to Olympic sprinter levels, but to the level of "Wow, she's really fuckin' burning. You said she's got a heart condition?"

I caught up to Hitomi and Madoka's frozen bodies in the nick of time, flicked my shield to restart time, and shouted, "Madoka, think fast!" Before hurling the unicorn at her chest.

She started to turn her head mid-stride and stopped suddenly when she was pelted in the back. She looked down at the plushy. Hitomi looked too. Then, in the middle of the sidewalk, the unicorn and the two middle-schoolers vanished.

This cycle was a clusterfucking shit-show.

**()~~()**

The pieces, you could argue, were all present and accounted for, but if the game was playing itself, it was leaving a lot to be desired. Madoka was totally flummoxed, of course, this is always the case, but Hitomi was subbing for Sayaka in this run, and she was holding up about as well as a penguin, suddenly aware it was the last living thing on earth. I didn't have a solid idea of what that would've looked like until now, and it was Hitomi at this exact moment. Penguins can get really existentially inundated apparently, and it manifests as a very somatic thing.

"Madoka, I can't feel my arms!" Hitomi shouted, as a horde of admittedly mind-numbing figures danced around their feet.

It was the first thing either of them had said since they were transported to this completely alien plane. It was nice that they were skipping the typical niceties like 'Where are we?!', 'Am I dreaming?' or the worldlier 'Oh. I suppose I've died'. That being said, it was maybe indicative of Hitomi's brain being unable to work fast enough for the stimuli, and that was slightly worrying.

Sayaka, dare I say it, was more level-headed than either of these girls, at least when it came to radical new experiences. She asked the questions. "What the fuck?" "Did you drug me?" "Are those cotton balls with mustaches?", but she re-centered awful fast. Hitomi had slid so far off balance, that the scales were clipping. I'd figured cosmic horror was an analog field, but here Hitomi was, literally bottoming out right in front of me. There was no sanity to be had between the two of them.

At least, I thought so.

Without warning or precedence, to be honest, Madoka turned to Hitomi, who was gurgling and flapping her arms like a hummingbird with no future in the air, and slapped her square in the face. Hitomi ceased all functions immediately.

Madoka grabbed her by the arm and said, "Can you feel my hand?"

Hitomi nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, that's something," Madoka said with a small grin. "Let's calm down for a second."

Demonic possession. Had to be. Madoka was not mentally equipped to be this Zen, but I guess Hitomi was even more codependent than she was. In this relationship, Madoka was filling a vital foundational role. This was a fucking sociology 101 demo in the middle of a witch's labyrinth.

Neat.

Clearly, Madoka was scared shitless. She was holding onto the unicorn that'd come with them so tightly that she threatened to decapitate it, but she tried to keep her cool for Hitomi's sake. They were still in danger, but luckily, the final actors were entering the arena.

From my hidden vantage point, I saw a bright yellow light envelop the area where Madoka and Sayaka were standing, disintegrating any rodents unlucky enough to be in the kill radius, and knocking back all the others. The girls reappeared, unscathed. Mami had arrived.

To Mami, of course, it was all the same whether we had a Sayaka or a Hitomi, so her opening routine remained largely unchanged.

"Looks like I got here just in time," She said, the words sort of lazily wafting out of her mouth. "You didn't happen to see a small, fluffy cat looking critter around here, did you?"

Madoka looked down at her unicorn for a brief moment, as though affirming it wasn't the cat Mami was looking for, before shaking her head.

"Oh well," Mami sighed. "I'm sure he'll turn up soon anyway."

Presently, I felt something brush against my legs.

Shit.

I cleared my throat. "Awfully audacious of you to show up here," I said. "Considering."

Kyubey looked up at me, as confused as he could possibly be. "I don't usually associate with people who hunt me for sport, but I find your existence too perplexing to simply ignore."

"That's really fuckin' sweet," I muttered dismissively. "But shut up. My program's on."

The fireworks were indeed starting. Mami twirled about gracefully and said, "Looks like I have some unfinished business to take care of."

With that, she began her long form transformation sequence. It was pretty bitchin'.

She just kept twirling and twirling while dandelion ribbons sprouted out from nowhere and enveloped her like three tacky wedding dresses being stitched all at once. Seriously, you wouldn't notice if you weren't paying attention, but she must've spun at least 2000 degrees by the time she put her beret on. Then, with a wink, she summoned a fleet of muskets out of thin air.

She took aim at basically everything and let fly. The girls were very impressed.

Kyubey crawled up my leg and up onto my shoulder, as though to improve his vantage, but having none of that shit, I grabbed him by his tail and dropped him mercilessly onto the ground.

He landed on all fours and looked up at me, a little upset maybe. "I don't see any reason for this unbridled aggression, miss," he said.

I turned to face him, dropped to my knees. "If you really need a reason. Like, if you really fucking need one, I can provide you one," I said slowly like he was a lost tourist. "Would you like me to do that?"

If he had any dynamic range of expression, he might've become quite passive aggressive at this point, but that's already what he was at every possible conversational node.

"I'm sure we'll run into each other some other time... Kuro-san," he said quite passive aggressively. I assumed he was referencing the color of my hair, and that that was the best clever quip he could come up with given the circumstances. I really dug the hell out of that assumption because it made him out to be a useless, tongue-tied twit.

Then he sauntered off. I didn't much like the new nickname, but it's not like I was gonna give him the time of day and correct him.

"Yeah. Next time I'll make sure to crush every god da—"

_"TIRO FINALE!"_

"—fuckin' shit."

**()~~()**

Actually, if I'm being honest, the Hitomi arc was full on moe-blob trash. It's not like there was really anyone to blame, though. If anyone was tryharding, it was Mami, but she kinda got a pass on account of being an actual badass. Hitomi was about as homeostatic as the big fucking bang. She just couldn't hang for shit. The weirdest thing was Madoka, just sort of holding her hand through the whole thing like she'd done this dozens of times before, or rather that she was  _aware_ she'd done this dozens of times before. It was the same way she'd treated me on our very first go 'round.

Kinda made me jealous.

After Mami cleared the labyrinth and the illusory walls disappeared, the girls took a moment to get their bearings.

They found themselves back on the sidewalk in the middle of town. No one had seemed to notice their departure.

I found myself standing awkwardly in front of a bus stop sign like I was trying to read the arrival times, only I was far too close for that to make any God damn sense. I was in plain sight of the girls, if only they were to look behind them. Realizing my vulnerability, I immediately ducked into the bus shelter and started planking on the bench.

Totally fucking invisible. A real-life ninja.

"Are you girls from Mitakihara Middle school as well?" Mami asked, noticing their uniforms. "First years?"

Madoka nodded, unable to formulate an intelligent response.

Hitomi looked on, mouth still agape. "M-Madoka, wasn't that transfer student just here too? Before all the..." She waved her arms in circles. "What was her name again? Ake—OH SHI—" She covered her mouth with both of her hands.

"Sayaka-chan!" Madoka gasped as they both suddenly remembered where their feet were. "I'm sorry, senpai. I'm sure we have a lot to talk about, but we really need to leave."

"Miki-san fell down the stairs at school!" Hitomi elaborated.

They were about to take off running again when Mami held up her hand.

"The 16:12 bus will get you there faster than running," She said calmly. "Unless you two are a lot faster than you look."

Fuck.

As I heard their footsteps approaching, I imagined a hypothetical conversation in which I tried to pass off my presence as a total coincidence. That was bullshit. I was the one who'd told Hitomi about Sayaka in the first place. I could try to explain that I'd gotten worried and went to go find them. Also bullshit. Current version Homura didn't know where the music store was, and there's no way I would've beaten Hitomi there anyway. What's more, why the fuck would I be sitting at the bus stop fifty feet away from them if my intention was to meet them here?

The unfortunate thing was that they'd seen me just before we were teleported into the labyrinth and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about that. Because now it would be suspicious if I  _wasn't_  hanging around somewhere. I could pretend I was asleep. Like I'd been knocked out by the same strange phenomenon that had transported the girls into another dimension. That was shady at best.

Fuck it, I'd just deal with this later.

I transformed and time-stopped the fuck outta there just in the nick of time.

**()~~()**

When Sayaka woke up, she was in the hospital. Hitomi and Madoka were there. Kyousuke had wheeled himself in and out a couple of times too. Sayaka tried to suppress her elation about that. It didn't work.

They told her that she'd fallen down the stairs, but she didn't remember anything like that, and that was fine because she believed them anyway.

Madoka was quite emotional in her reaction, as well she should've been. She leveled platitudes such as  _'I can't imagine what I would have done if we'd lost you,'_  or  _'you have your whole life ahead of you.'_  Generally, she was being as fatalistic as if Sayaka had actually gone and bit it, and Sayaka was pushing back with all her might:  _it was just an accident_ , and  _it wasn't as bad as it seemed_.

Aside from a minor concussion, it seemed she would be fine. No broken bones, by some miracle. Some bruises and scrapes, but nothing that wouldn't heal with time. Honestly, given the expected outcome of a stairwell tumble, it was a fucking wonder that everyone bought it.

Mami had tagged along too, but she politely stood out in the hallway while the others caught up. I stood out there with her because actually nobody really knew me very well. I'd talked to each of them at least once, but it was always presumed that I was speaking on behalf of someone else. I was a peripheral agent in everyone's bubble. No one was claiming me, but they didn't question my presence either, assuming that I was someone else's tag along.

That being said, to Mami, I must've stuck out like some sort of runtish albino giraffe in the company of several regular, much taller giraffes, because as I stood there, awkwardly staring at the floor, she glanced over at me and said, "So, what color is  _your_  soul gem?"

I let out a deflated puff of air and muttered, "Fuck."

"Pardon me," she giggled. The fucking gal.

"Tell me something," I said. "Were you just fishing, or did you actually know?"

"I feel like I was a bit too forward for that to be fishing."

"That's a dodge."

Although yeah, as far as bluffs go, that was roughly equivalent to going all in on a post-river straight draw, hoping for cards that weren't actually in the deck. It sounded like something I would do.

"Okay," She started. "Firstly. If you were actually their friends, you'd be in there right now."

Solid.

She continued, "Secondly, I heard that girl Hitomi mention that the new transfer student had been nearby just before the witch's labyrinth appeared. Afterward, that girl ' _Ake_ -something' was nowhere to be found. I think that's sort of strange, Akemi-san."

Yeah, that was pretty damning.

"Lastly," she said with poise. "After we defeated the familiar and her subsidiaries, the labyrinth disappeared, and there you were, standing mere centimeters from the bus schedule like the most shortsighted middle–schooler in the world. Then you ducked into the bus shelter suddenly."

Fuck me. Fuck me inside of a toaster. I was never going to be a ninja.

"Is that why you suggested they take the bus?" I asked, defeated.

"Partly," she admitted. "I mean, it really was the fastest way, but imagine my surprise when you'd up and vanished."

"Musta been fuckin' palpable," I said, drawing circles with my left foot. Then, after another huff, "It's dark purple."

**()~~()**

She kept my secret for a few days, and that was just as well because as it turned out, something much more important had happened.

The first sign that something was amiss was Kyousuke's sudden reappearance at Mitakihara Middle School one morning. To boot, his arm was working just fine. He was getting a real fucking kick out of demoing the stupid thing by ostentatiously violining, or whatever the fuck, for all the girls.

For the record, that never  _just happens_. Not in all my experience so far has that fucking violin gimp healed up by any natural means. Sayaka was still cooped up in her hospital bed, and I could attest to that being accurate to within an hour. I had a pretty good hunch as to what happened.

I had Mami meet me after school that afternoon. We had a maverick to hunt.

**()~~()**

"I must say, Akemi-san, the mystique surrounding your calling me here is intoxicating," Mami said, very much like someone who didn't think they might die by decapitation very soon.

"Well, I gotta keep it interesting, or else you'll get bored with me, or something like that," I said.

"I don't see that happening very easily," Mami said coyly. "You ought to give yourself more credit than that. It's making me depressed."

We were in a strip mall parking lot. A really dead one. Most of the storefronts were for sale, in real need of renovations. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to front the costs to do that because there was much more modern real estate in other more densely populated zones ripe for the taking. It made a really nice place to have a secret witch hunting meeting and/or to move a few kilos of bathtub crank on the down low.

I exhaled slowly as I thought of how best to explain the situation.

"So Kyousuke's back at school. I'm sure you've noticed."

"And you're in love with him, is that it?" Mami interjected.

I glanced at her. She seemed to always be on the verge of bursting into tears laughing. "Yeah," I said. "And that's why we're in buttfuck nowhere, so I could tell you that without fear of him hearing."

She chortled. Success.

"I'm sorry," She said. "Low hanging fruit. I just couldn't—"

"Low hanging fruit, yeah," I said. "Acknowledged. You do you."

She cleared her throat and stood at attention. She seemed ready to listen now.

"I happen to know that it's a magical girl that's done it," I said. "I'll go further and say I'm pretty sure it's one of yours."

"One of mine?" Mami asked with a look of mock surprise. "What makes you so sure?"

"I know it's the blue one, the green one, or the pink one. I also know that the blue one is bedridden."

"I'll save you the trouble," She said before I could get too far, damn her. "If it's one of those, it's the green one, hands down. But you still haven't told me why you're so sure."

I sighed.

"When was the last time you saw Shizuki-san?" I asked rhetorically.

"Yesterday afternoon actually," Mami answered. "She wasn't at school this morning. How very suspicious!"

"I get the sense you already agree with me, and you're just pulling my leg."

"Why would I deny you the opportunity to lay out your case?"

"That's very nice of you. Thank you."

"Continue."

I sighed again. I couldn't really lay out my entire case, as that would involve some unnecessarily explicit details, and everything relevant I knew about Hitomi, Mami probably already knew too. Beyond that, I was actually winging it. This had never happened before, after all.

"I'm not sure actually," I said. "It's a hunch."

"Why are you hedging now? That's a dodge!" Mami decreed, very happy with her new plaything.

The biggest reason I had to believe Hitomi had contracted was that I'd planned it that way, and things had mostly gone according to plan up 'til now, but I could hardly say that now. I was actually on Mami's good side for some reason.

"I have reasons. So there." I said.

"That's no fun," Mami said. "You never told me what kind of power you have. Invisibility? Teleportation?"

"Something like that. Yeah." I said, dismissively.

Mami grinned. "Do you want to explain why we're out here?"

I pointed at a derelict would-be electronics shop. "There's a familiar here," I said.

"And you wanted to bond over ganging up on it?"

"No. I'm just pretty sure this is where Kyubey's gonna lead that poor thing," I said, checking the time. "That is to say, in a few minutes or so—"

"We should be seeing the green one show up." Mami finished, looking past me.

I looked to see what she was staring at, and thank fucking heavens, a few blocks down was Hitomi, scanning her surroundings, a green glow emanating from her hand. The queen was in the center.

I gestured broadly with my arms towards Hitomi, as though to provide retroactive justification for my hunch.

Mami just shrugged. She wasn't going to give me an inch, and you know what? That was just fucking fine. It was slowly dawning on me that I'd achieved something super difficult. Hitomi Shizuki had contracted of her own free will. Hitomi was a magical girl now. We'd abandoned the realm of theory entirely. This was uncharted territory and anything could happen.

And here I was, standing on the precipice.

I threw up my hands in surrender. "In any event, that needs to be addressed," I said, pointing at Hitomi in the distance.

"Sure," Mami replied.

 

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	7. The Game, By Transposition

**(Attempt #29)**

"When I saw Miki-san laid out in her hospital bed, with all those tubes and... apparatuses plugged into her arm, I realized that she could've... just been gone. And she wouldn't have been able to do any of the things she'd ever wanted to do with her life. And she wouldn't have been happy about it, I'm sure. And I realized that could have just as easily been me. And I could've... and I—and that didn't... sit well with me."

Hitomi stood there in the parking lot, fiddling with her soul gem like it was a box of chocolates intended for a special someone, but one she couldn't quite bring herself to deliver. It glowed bright green, in defiance of the all-encompassing orange of the setting sun.

"And then?" I asked, though I already knew the end of this story.

By way of answer, Hitomi sort of held up her soul gem for a half second and meekly shrugged. "I wished for Kyousuke to be able to play the violin again."

Intrinsically, this was a different wish than Sayaka's, and I wondered if that was her exact wording, because it seemed super fucking dangerous to phrase it that way. Kyouko could attest to the fact that Kyubey was a maniacal genie who basically masturbated to the idea of twisting wishes to the full extent that the incubator ethics handbook allowed. Based on wording alone, I could picture Kyousuke on stage strung up like a marionette, his still busted arm stapled to a violin bow, as he is forced to perform Soviet folk music by the puppet master, Joseph Fucking Stalin. The music keeps getting faster and faster, and the Red Army Choir is laughing at him, and Stalin is shouting at him in Russian, even though he can't understand it, and he's just crying and whimpering "nyet..." and something about a girl he knew in kindergarten. That's how I would grant that wish if I were the Incubator, anyway.

Suffice to say, Sayaka was a bit more cautious and/or utilitarian with her wish to simply have his arm healed. He wouldn't have to pick up a violin again. He could do whatever he wanted with his arm. Sayaka the moderate, providing equality of opportunity, not necessarily equality in outcome.

Except that she really wasn't, and if you thought about it for two fucking seconds, you'd realize that. As far as alignment goes, she takes the express train on the diagonal from lawful good straight to chaotic evil, but you have to suspend that reality for the joke to work.

In response to Hitomi's dramatic, and entirely expected, announcement, I gasped a very self-indulgent gasp, making an about turn to face Mami, who was patiently waiting behind me.

"Oh, my fucking shit, Tomoe-senpai!" I exclaimed. "This totally explains a non-negligible number of things!"

That about did it for her. She crumpled to the ground slowly, one hand clasped tightly over her mouth as she vainly tried to contain great bellows of laughter. It wasn't working, and it looked like she was having a fucking seizure. I was on a roll.

"Oh, gosh, Akemi-kouhei-kun-chan!" She gasped, through unabated hysterical fits, "For instance, this explains why Kyousuke's arm wasn't completely  _scuttle-whomped_  at school today!"

I let out an unmitigated chortle and turned abruptly to hide my face. Fucking fuck. Tripled honorifics aside, she'd made that term up on the spot. That wasn't fair. Mami won this round.

Hitomi, a penguin, suddenly aware she was the last of her kind in a swimming pool filled with hungry seals, had little in the way of forming a rational response to any of this, and that was fine because she wasn't the main character of the story.

So, before she could begin with the arm flapping and the foaming at the mouth, I took charge.

"Alright, Tomoe-senpai," I said, in a bid to wrangle who really ought to have been the good cop in this scenario. "She's going to have a heart attack."

"Ahem," Mami uttered, still on the ground. In one smooth motion, she rolled onto her knees, sprung into a standing position, and did a little twirl in place, clasping her hands neatly behind her back.

"Not that I didn't appreciate the adulation," I said.

"Oh, I'm sure you did," Mami said bouncily. "I'll bet that stuffy, insecure anti-socialite inside you was just leaping for joy.  _They like me! They really like me!_ "

Oh, this puffy bitch. Why couldn't I hate her?

"It was funny, and I deserved it," I said indignantly.

"Yeah, say it again like you actually believe it this ti—"

 _"_ _IT WAS FUNNY, AND I DESERVED IT,"_  I repeated, with a totally even—well—a tone, anyway.

Hitomi audibly gulped.

"Right," I said. "I guess there's a few things we need to get caught up on."

**()~~()**

Over the last week or so, Mami had been taking Hitomi and Madoka out on expeditions on the mean streets of Mitakihara. Neither of them had what you might call a natural aptitude for this sort of thing, but Mami really sells it as a glamorous fucking pursuit. They spent an absurd amount of time on the edge of a literal total player kill, and Mami gave it all the weight of a stroll through an art museum, devoid of even the distant worry that some snobby sack of shit might skin up next to you, asking really coy questions like, "what do you think Jackson Pollock meant to say with these ejaculatory paint splatters on the canvas?" No. All these gals had to worry about was what in God's name they were gonna wish for, and what kind of cake they were gonna eat tonight.

Now, one thing naturally led to another, and given the circumstances, Hitomi really had no reason not to contract. She was well bred, and well versed in trying to do altogether too many things at once. This witch fighting thing wasn't marketed accurately as something that might necessitate you drop a couple of hobbies in order to pick up. She probably still thought it was something she had total control over, co-equal in importance with calligraphy and tea ceremonies. It certainly didn't hurt that she had a legitimate wish burning a hole in her pocket.

Soon enough, as sure as the sun rose every day, here we were, and it was time for the dress rehearsal.

**()~~()**

It sometimes surprises me to remember that Mami was basically my Qui Gon Jinn. Way back when I first contracted, I'd learned the ground rules from her, and she wasn't the worst mentor someone like me could've stumbled on. Actually, she was one of the only people teaching ground rules to anyone.

She liked to start by doing an audition of sorts where we could establish some fundamentals. Principally important was figuring out just what exactly your special power was. I can't speak for everyone, but when I contracted, I only had a vague sense of what I was capable of, but I sorted myself out in due time.

Because smart people feel stuff out.

I think most of the new girls go through an awkward phase where they can't adequately demonstrate their new skills, and that's fine, because A, most new girls don't actually need to show anyone what they can do, and B, there's a strong selection bias against girls that can't sort this stuff out on their own. Plus, Kyubey's there to help out, and he's usually got a good idea of where to start.

All that to say, this shouldn't have been very hard.

"Spin around for us," I said as supportively as I cared to sound. We were on the rooftop of a steel warehouse. Real big, lots of open space. It was Madoka, Mami, Hitomi, and I.

Hitomi, whom I'd been speaking to, stood about fifteen paces away from the rest of us. She was wearing what looked like a green French maid outfit. The bowtie that cinched it together was so uselessly big, it almost looked like a pair of wings. She had white, arm-length gloves and matching stockings. Her hair was tied in pigtails with poppy emerald ribbons. She had a wand that was really more of a baton, given how long it was. It had stars all over it, and she didn't seem to have a grasp of its center of balance yet.

Oh, and she had these hilariously oversized glasses for some reason too.

There were so many frills and ribbons, so much square footage of lace and satin. She was so completely not Hitomi but so exactly spot-on Hitomi at the same time.

"Okay..." Hitomi mumbled as she meekly twirled about.

Mami fervently chuckled a silent chuckle while her back was turned. "if nothing else, Hitomi, you look dynamite in that thing," she said. "Right, Akemi-san? Agree with me."

"Dynamite," I concurred. "I would know."

Hitomi looked back at us, twintails bouncing. "What do you mean 'if nothing else'? How am I supposed to take that?"

"Don't pay it any mind, mmkay?" Mami said. "Can you show us a little of what you can do?"

Hitomi cleared her throat. "I have... this book." From behind her back, she produced an encyclopedia-sized volume, mahogany, leather-bound, and sealed with a heart-shaped locket. I almost had a stroke as I started having uncontrollable thoughts about the inadequacy of my own notebook. I banished them quickly and wiped the sweat from my brow.

"What's so special about it?" I asked, leaning a bit heavily on the contemptuous side.

Not picking up on my irrational jealousy, Hitomi magicked the thing open, rendering the locket a useless cosmetic. "I think it's a spell book, or maybe an index, or like a bestiary of spirits," she said. "It's really weird actually. There are pictures in here of things I've seen before, and a lot that I haven't, with names, and a phrase of sorts that accompany them."

"Maybe you could give us an example," Mami said.

"Right," Hitomi said. She gingerly put her baton down, so she could hold the book with two hands. She flipped through a couple of pages, brow furrowed, then stopped. "So, this one is called 'The Executor'. The picture is of a fountain pen and the phrase is 'I heard her words and carried out her will.' but I don't know what that means."

"That's fuckin' badass," I muttered to myself.

Mami stroked her chin and pondered it. As well she should. This was actually fucking nuts. I had no fucking idea what this was.

Kyubey suddenly appeared from nowhere and hopped onto Hitomi's shoulder. "Perhaps you should try to summon one of these avatars," he said. "It seems likely that you are the matriarch this executor refers to."

Hitomi looked at Kyubey, then back down at the book, and then she blanked.

Seeing her friend was getting nowhere, Madoka demurely inched forward, cleared her throat, and said: "How might she try doing that?"

This was clearly indicative that both Mami and I were asleep at the wheel, or whichever metaphor best translates to lethargically chortling at the expense of the uninitiated, because Madoka was just about the last person in line for who should've been asking that question. Maybe just edging out in front of Kyubey, because it would've been really fucking obnoxious if he started asking himself leading questions.

"This phrase must be an incantation," Kyubey said. "Repeat it, as though it is a command."

Hitomi wasn't fucking capable of that and we all knew it.

 _"_ _I heard her words and_ _carried out her will,"_  Hitomi muttered. "But… that makes it sound like  _I'm_  the executor. It doesn't make sense when I say it like that.

I had this one.

"Spin it," I said smugly, truly believing for a moment that I'd made any fuck-ass sense. "I mean, twist the… take the—uh… the roots—fucking—the  _fundamentals_ , if you understand my manner of speaking."

I really, really thought I had this one. Honestly, I knew what I wanted to say. It was on the tip of my tongue, but my prefrontal cortex was suddenly behaving like a scarcely lucid Bop-It toy desperately trying to hold down a phone interview seconds after shooting up.

"Take what y—take the words that you wanna say, and they're there already if you look, uh—take what you have t-there and—uh…  _invert_  it."

I was not wrong.

Kyubey got it, or maybe he didn't. Impossible to tell; his face hadn't changed in the slightest. That said, he was now far and away the most expressive member of the group, as everyone else looked like they were wearing paper bags over their heads that a 5-year-old had drawn their faces on, except without any of the facial features.

The full extent of my sharp insights may not have gotten across.

"You can think about it as sort of a call-response," said Mami after probably a thousand years of collective agony. "Like in music, you know?"

"I, uh..." Hitomi started. She gave a half-hearted nod, maybe. "Go on," she said.

That was a negative.

"Let's say I'm an air traffic controller, and you're a pilot," Mami posited.

"...Complementary," I uttered slowly, finally having some sense of what the fuck I'd been trying to say. "Directive..."

Hitomi ignored me and addressed Mami. "Okay," she said. "I don't really see where this is going."

"You're on final approach, and I say—" At this point, Mami furrowed her brow, held her soul gem up to her mouth like it was a radio, and squawked  _"_ _Delta 2106, cleared to land on 22 right."_  She lowered her radio just a hair and peered at Hitomi expectantly. "Then you would say..."

Hitomi's eyes were as wide as saucers, and she said nothing for a few seconds, then, mirroring Mami, she picked up her wand, raised it to her lips, and half-whispered  _"_ _Roger."_

Mami's eye twitched.

"Ahem," came an assertive vocalization from the pink one.

She had her phone out and was using that as a radio prop, and this immediately made the others look silly. She was shaking like she'd run half a mile and then jumped out of an airplane, but her voice rang out clear enough.

 _"_ _L-Landing on... on 22 right! Delta 21... s-something something..."_  Madoka eked out. It had taken a lot out of her, and good on her for trying, but I needed to point out some inaccuracies.

"When final approach tells you—"

"That's damn well close enough," Mami said, cutting me off.

I—well—fuck. Okay.

"So, there's a pattern here, Shizuki-san," Mami said. "I gave Kaname-san an order, and she repeated it back. So, what do you think you should say to get the executor to appear?"

The switch that flipped in Hitomi's brain was audible.

She let out a small excited gasp because she knew she had it. She looked down at the book and gripped her baton tightly, then said, "Executor, hear my words and carry out my will!"

With no further delay, a bright green flash erupted from the baton, and a swirling miasma wafted from the book. Some sort of energy was being focused onto a point on the ground between all of us. Hitomi's wand glowed brightly, and the transient essence took form.

All at once, everything died down, and in front of us, standing rigidly upright, was a fountain pen. A gold engraving on the side, spelled out in exquisite calligraphy, read  _"_ _Der Vollstrecker_ _"_

Kyubey leaped down from Hitomi's shoulder and curiously circled the object. Then, seemingly satisfied, he plopped down next to it and said, "The Executor has heard your call, Shizuki-san."

**()~~()**

The Executor, as it was called, turned out to be a total dud. I mean, it was a magical fountain pen that had appeared out of thin air and never dried out, but that was it. Couldn't kill any witches with it; it was just a really cool pen.

The important thing, though, was that Hitomi now knew how to summon things out of her little book, and that was worth more than a thousand of those fancy fountain pens. Although admittedly, I would have murdered a bus full of school children to get my hands on one of those fucking things.

We spent a while figuring out summoning commands for each of the different 'avatars', as Kyubey insisted on referring to them, and we made a little bit of headway. Some of the entries were simple, like the pen.

Among others, there was 'The Collector', which seemed to be an enchanted bag of holding with the phrase  _'_ _I carried her burden, and kept her secrets'._  Really super fucking jealous about that one, because not only did it duplicate a large chunk of the utility of my shield, the opening to this thing was elastic, so you could stuff just about anything in there.

There was also 'The Illuminator', which was an orb of light she could control with her wand. She could modulate temperature and luminosity at will, and after some tinkering, she found she could change the directionality of the light as well. The phrase was  _'_ _I banished the shadows where she walked.'_

But there were also some, as we progressed through the tome, for which the summoning command wasn't readily apparent from the accompanying phrase. At least, not in the sense that we'd been thinking about these phrases so far.

For instance, 'The Deluge' was ostensibly some sort of water magic, but the phrase was cryptic and not easily transmuted into a directive:  _'_ _A roar like thunder, the ocean rises, and the ocean claims.'_  There being no even implicit reference to Hitomi herself, it was difficult for us to find an adequate structure for a command. The best we could think of was  _'Deluge, rise and claim!'_  but a very unconvinced Hitomi was unable to manifest anything special with that phrase.

Still, further, there were darker and more obscure passages in the book. There was 'The Derelict' whose identity we couldn't quite put our collective finger on. The phrase did us no favors either:  _'_ _And of the ending we did not speak, nor of death, nor of darkness, and I was alone.'_  This was already enough to get the hairs on the back of our necks standing, but for some reason, we kept going.

On one of the last pages was an entry for 'The Null'. There was no picture, or maybe there was but we just couldn't see it. What was most perturbing was that there was no verse. There was nothing, and that was enough to convince us to call it a day.

**()~~()**

"There are actually a couple of things I need to go over before we do this," Mami said, idling in front of a vacant teriyaki truck. "And, since this is the real deal, I think it'd be charming if we actually drafted a plan or something crazy like that."

"Don't we normally just play this by ear?" I asked. "I mean what plans can we actually lay out here? We don't know what to plan for yet."

Hitomi, still in her street clothes, leaned in cautiously and said, "I'm sure there are general principles we can adhere to."

"There totally are," said Mami. "But I also happen to have fought this thing before. It didn't go well."

I wasn't usually on the receiving end of that line.

We were witch hunting, and Mami had tracked some fresh prey. After watching Mami and I deal with Gertrud, this was Hitomi's first real fight. It was getting dark, the teriyaki trucks of Mitakihara were all closed, and now here we were, standing in front of the entrance to Suleika's lair.

"Do continue," I said, although I already knew everything there was to know about this witch.

"She really likes the dark," Mami said. "She's incredibly powerful in the dark, actually. I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but that bitch nearly put me out of commission."

Kyubey hopped onto Mami's shoulder and started blabbering like a self-important toddler. "This witch is nearly invincible in perfect darkness, but even a small light, something as minor as a flashlight or a streetlamp, will dramatically reduce its combat effectiveness."

"Sounds good," I said. "I didn't bring my magical headlamp, I'm afraid."

"And you know what, Akemi-san?" Mami started, "That's going to be just totally okay because I thought we could have our novitiate here provide us a light."

We both looked at Hitomi expectantly. She stared blankly at us for a second and then it clicked.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. She transformed quickly and started violently swiping through her textbook. "Illuminator, please banish the shadows where I walk!"

A soft orb of bright green light instantiated in front of us.

"Thank you, Illuminator-san," Hitomi said.

Mami and I stared at the orb, wondering what it had done to receive such formality.

"That's awfully polite of you," I muttered.

"One should never be so rushed as to forego common courtesies," Hitomi said, beaming.

Mami and I kept looking at the orb, resisting the urge to make eye contact. We didn't say anything or acknowledge it in any way. That was just Hitomi.

**()~~()**

"Shizuki-san, more luminosity!" Mami yelled.

When you get a new party member who's under-leveled, you try to save all the juicy experience for them. So, we were dragging our feet a bit with this witch.

"Understood, Tomoe-Senpai," Hitomi responded, "Increasing lumens!"

The illuminator got brighter, detailing the viscous strands of pitch-dark plasma which licked at the ceilings and the walls. In response, the darkness receded into the corners, glomming together to escape the surging light.

Suleika's lair felt like a chamber of a medieval fortress carved into a mountain. We had entered through a large hallway, barren, as though the previous inhabitants had packed up their ornate decorations when they left. Her throne room was at the end of the hall, a giant chasm with no place to stand, save what you might call a stunted terrace at the mouth of the corridor. Hitomi was posted here, the idea being that she'd have an escape square if her position was challenged, while Mami and I were making use of makeshift ribbon platforms in the opposite corners, meta-directing the figurative aromatic.

Suleika occupied the vacuous center, and since we were so very clever, we'd herded her towards the ceiling by projecting the illuminator underneath her center of mass, cutting off any potential escape shenanigans.

It was only a matter of time now. The quivering tendrils at her extrema were waning, becoming brittle and crumbling, as though precious fluids were being redirected to preserve her central functions.

In a way, it was eerily human, but—like—fuck feeling sorry for witches.

"We've almost got it!" Hitomi cheered. Her many ribbons and hair tie-offs bounced as she hopped enthusiastically.

"Hooray," I said. "Mami, kill it."

Mami winked and did a little twirl. "Looks like it's past your bedti—"

She stopped mid-sentence—thank heavens—because all at once, everything went shit-fuck.

A small, previously unnoticed contingent of the darkness, which had been hiding underneath Hitomi's platform, suddenly sprung up and kamikazed into her face. It was vaporized instantly, but Hitomi's concentration dropped 100 meters to grade, and so did her book, which she'd lost her grip on.

The illuminator went totally dark. We did not have any other light sources.

I'd give it two seconds. It was irresponsible, but I was curious.

In those two seconds: the air seemed to congeal, a rumbling erupted from everywhere; I could've sworn it was laughter, I heard a smattering of musket fire, I was keenly aware that Suleika had explosively expanded to nearly fill the entire room, searching for her aggressors. On the tail end of those two seconds, I could feel cold tendrils of void make exploratory jabs at my feet, and I was about to call the experiment quits when I heard a strangled, gurgling shriek from Hitomi's direction.

"INFERNO, FUCKING BURN THAT BITCH!"

It was blinding. The heat was intense and immediate like I was standing in front of a stupidly big hair dryer with an annoyingly bright tactical flashlight attachment. An impressive, orange column of voracious flame filled the central chasm, originating from somewhere deep below.

I had it easy, though. Suleika was burning on the outside and the inside. She was the one shrieking now, and it was like this stupid fucking tactical hair dryer also had an array of two dozen oversized tea kettles set to boil, and they were all whistling at once.

It was awesome.

I could see Hitomi clearly. She was laid out, terrified, but her eyes were glowing from behind her giant spectacles. Not even figuratively. They were literally emitting light, burning a wild shade of emerald.

Mami didn't waste any time on a useless one-liner. I didn't even hear her shout  _Tiro_ _Finale_  this time. I just saw Suleika violently dissociate suddenly, and the shrieking stopped.

The room faded away, leaving us alone in an empty self-storage depot, a grief seed resting between the three of us.

I could see Mami on her knees practicing some box breathing. Hitomi couldn't stop rubbing her eyes.

Kyubey popped up from nowhere, it seemed, and scurried over to Hitomi.

"Shizuki-san," he said, observing her soul gem. "You need to purify yourself soon! You must have used a tremendous amount of magical energy in that attack."

He was right, her soul gem was a murky forest green with a few dark streaks traveling up the side of the vessel. She'd almost wiped herself out with that one.

Mami opened her eyes and stood up straight. She eyed the spot where the witch had been just a minute prior and calmly walked over to claim the reward.

"This, Shizuki-san," she said, kneeling to pick up the black relic, "is a grief seed." She stood back up and walked over to where Hitomi lay. "Since you put on such a spectacular display, I say you deserve to keep this one, which is just as well because you also need it the most right now."

Hitomi wasn't processing much of it, but she took notice when Mami held the grief seed up to her soul gem, sucking the dark aura right out of her heart.

"Do you see, Shizuki-san?" Kyubey said, ever the unsolicited tutorial bot. "This is how you, as magical girls, replenish your energy."

Hitomi nodded but didn't say anything for a while.

**()~~()**

"I just wanna square something away here," I said after Mami and I had dropped Hitomi off at her house.

"You just wanna square something away," Mami repeated.

"I sincerely doubt that the inscription under  _'_ _The Inferno'_ was anything remotely akin to  _'_ _I fucking burned that bitch'._ "

"You sincerely doubt that the inscription—"

"Thanks, Mami. I really feel like I've been understood."

She gave me a thumbs up. There was a pause.

"Thoughts?" I said.

"Well it's been clearly demonstrated that she doesn't need to say it  _exactly_  so every time," Mami said. "I mean, she quite provocatively interjected the word  _'_ _please'_  into her summoning command for The Illuminator, and that totally worked for her."

"Mami, any reasonable parsing protocol would know how to handle—"

"Reasonable parsing protocol, my ass, Akemi-san," she interjected. "We made that entire process up. Why are we even slightly surprised when it turns out to be more complicated than what we hashed out the other day?"

 _"_ _If I may,"_  came a small whiny voice in our heads.

I directed a mental barrage of disjointed curses at Kyubey, all of which he ignored.

 _"_ _Shizuki-san's dominion over her avatars and furthermore her ability to summon them is not based in her ability to recite incantations,"_  he said. _"_ _They are a part of her soul and will respond to earnest feelings of intent. That they are bound in any way to the passages in the grimoire is entirely fallacious."_

 _"_ _Huh,"_  I thought. Then, aloud, I said, "So they're sorta like dogs."

Mami crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.

I continued, "Like, it doesn't really matter if you say 'come here, boy' to a dog if you're not confident it's gonna listen to you. Dogs can sense that shit."

 _"_ _They are not dogs, Kuro-san,"_ Kyubey said like a fucking dipshit.

 _"_ _Ahem,"_  Mami thought, clearing her mental throat, which was actually really weird.  _"_ _So, when we told Hitomi_ _how to read the commands back, she believed it, and that gave her the authenticity and confidence to successfully summon The Executor,"_  she telepathed whilst performing charades concurrently with her flow of thoughts.  _"_ _And each subsequent success reinforced her abilities, like a positive feedback loop."_

I almost didn't catch anything she was thinking because I was busy watching her pantomime. She was reading, she was tapping her head like  _'_ _I got it!',_  then she gave a thumbs up and made a heart. I didn't really understand her motions for  _'_ _reinforce'_  but I believed them whole-heartedly.

Now she was just spinning her wrists in circles to indicate a  _'_ _positive feedback loop.'_

I silently applauded.

 _"_ _That's correct,"_  Kyubey said, unaware of the theatrics on the ground.

"They're like dogs," I confirmed.

**()~~()**

It didn't matter what Hitomi said, as long as she meant it. She had dropped her book, and without that reference, her command must have come bubbling up from inside. When the room went dark, and that viscous, all-encompassing fear kicked in, the kind that makes you feel like your guts are all trying to escape through your larynx, Hitomi had called on one of her servants from a place of primal terror, and her feelings were sincere.

She was a bit shaken, no doubt, and for a little while, she played things safe. Whenever we went hunting, she would hang back a bit, not wanting to get too close. She wasn't able to consistently summon the more powerful entities, like The Inferno, as she still felt it was out of turn for someone like  _her_  to be dominating things like  _that._

Still, she provided a useful assortment of utility spells, and she seemed happy to help in whatever way she could, but underneath her placid exterior, I got the sense that she was afraid.

I think one of the main reasons Madoka hadn't contracted yet was Hitomi's insistence that she not go through with it, or at least put a hell of a lot more thought into it than she had. She didn't necessarily regret her decision as of yet, she was still in the realm of healthy introspection, but she was getting there.

**()~~()**

_'_ _Then came the blue one, and the blue one bore fruits of knowledge and calamity, and the blue one started FUCKING IT ALL UP, THE COCKSUCKING BITCH,'_  read my latest journal entry.

Sayaka had started meddling with my scheme in unforeseen ways, which admittedly, should have very well been foreseen.

Hitomi, sort of feeling self-important with this whole magical girl thing, and also sort of acutely aware of her own mortality, had mustered the swagger and bravado to make a run at the gimp. Kyousuke's arm was totally healed up, yes, but in my mind, he's a chronic cripple, ever bound to the hospital bed of mediocrity and pretention.

_'_ _A runt, ecstatically suckling at the teat of his own self-pity. A fucking shit.'_

Hitomi was blind, her vision obscured by absurdly large glasses—which we found out didn't match her prescription, so she was actually fucking impaired—and the untainted longing of a middle schooler's heart.

She and Sayaka had been playing a very long hand of heads up Texas Hold-Em.

_'_ _Flop: check, check._

_Turn: check,_ _check.'_

I'd decided that affording myself a little poetic license was worth organizing my thoughts about this thing.

_'_ _River... the river was different, volatile, the current fast and the surface opaque.'_

I was actually infatuated with myself. It was unhealthy.

_'_ _Hitomi's_ _eyes flickered, she mayn't have had the straight, but neither did Sayaka, and with top and middle pair to boot, surely the blue one had no way to call a bluff that looked like a value bet._

_Hitomi_ _languidly fondled her chips, taking her sweet time. Then, after a brief pause, she pushed in. A meager fraction of her stack, easily callable if Sayaka_ _hit the straight, or a flush, or even what Hitomi herself_ _had, but no, Hitomi had_ _her limping in and drawing dead, no doubt._

_Sayaka looked_ _at Hitomi_ _dead in the eyes for a long moment._

_"_ _I am not a puppet," she uttered, shoving all her chips into the center. "Seven Hundred Sixty-Two Million, Four Hundred Seventy-Five Thousand. All in."_

_Hitomi_ _choked back a sob. She'd been had. Wiping a single tear from her cheek, she mucked her hand.'_

Oh, shit. That had gone too far. I'd really gotten carried away with that. For some reason  _"_ _I am not a puppet"_  had seemed super badass and emotionally resonant, but it didn't read well at all.

To be brief, Hitomi had decided, as she often did, to give Sayaka an ultimatum regarding Kyousuke. The terms, as per usual, were thus:

Sayaka gets a 24-hour head start to confess her love for him. After this period has expired, it was open season, and Hitomi would swoop in.

There was to be no touching of the hair or face.

Sayaka usually crumples to the ground in a heap of despair at this point.

 _"_ _Zombies,"_  she cries.  _"_ _That they are, and that am I. My love in Silence, undetected."_

But today, she felt different; alive, not dead. Instead of feeling like a ghost, unable to transmit her love across the void, she felt like an online shopper, coerced by a last-minute liquidation sale on an item she was pretty sure she'd have ponied up for at some point anyway.

To paraphrase, with finality this time, the conversation went like this:

Hitomi said,  _"_ _I'm in love with Kyousuke, and I know you are too, so I'll give you a day to confess before I give it a shot."_

Sayaka replied,  _"_ _Shit. Okay."_

And Kyousuke said 'yes' because she'd asked.

**()~~()**

Just like that, our quaint little hunting party got sidetracked by a bitch in heat. Hitomi was not taking it well, and she did little to mask how she was feeling.

We'd tracked a familiar of Charlotte's down to a dimly lit parking garage in an aging commercial district. For reference, if you wanted to kidnap someone, anyone, this is where you'd fucking do it. The proverbial big rock candy mountain of the parking garages, the servants of despair version, and the candy was innocent people.

Not only had we tracked the thing down, but we'd slain it too, and nothing of note had popped out of its corpse. This was too bad and all, 'cause we'd been hoping we might score a grief seed, but it is what it is, and there's no use making a fuss over—

"WHY—WHY— _WHY!?_ " Hitomi shouted, stomping on the ground in manic frustration. "WHY is there no grief seed  _AGAIN!?_ "

"I'm sorry Hitomi-chan," Mami said, her tone conciliatory. "Sometimes there just isn't, and there's nothing we can do about—"

"Didn't we wreck this thing?" Hitomi said, interrupting. "Did we not do it fast enough? Was I not good enough?" Her pet illuminator flashed repeatedly, emphasizing her key points.

"You were more than sufficient, Shizuki-san," Kyubey said, a compliment I'm sure he believed was high praise. "This one simply wasn't a witch, and there's nothing that you or any of us could have done about that."

"So, the real thing is still out there, and it's still hurting people?" Hitomi asked. "And here we are, and all we've done is wasted our time? Is  _that_  what—"

She turned away from us, clenching her fists and bunching her shoulders.

"I  _hate_  wasting my time," she said through gritted teeth. "What good am I if I waste my time?

A sort of green haze began to outline her body; a dark smolder, as though she was burning up. Her pigtails and ribbons seemed to deflate.

"If we're so special, then why haven't we found the witch?" She continued. "If I'm so powerful, then why couldn't I... Why did I let..."

She was shaking and becoming very green. Very disturbingly green.

Madoka, who'd been giving us some space till now, cleared her throat.

"Hitomi-chan, it's not your fault—"

"You're right Shizuki-san," I said, cutting Madoka off.

Everyone looked at me.

"We can't be satisfied with what we've done here," I said. "We have to find this witch. Tonight."

Mami's eyes narrowed a bit, clearly wondering why I was so dreadfully off-brand at this moment.

"If we don't find it, that thing is gonna find some poor soul out there and gobble it up," I pushed. "I say we don't give up just yet. How does that sound, team?"

Hitomi seemed to mellow a bit, or at least she'd halted her transformation into the fucking Jolly Green Giant. She definitely wasn't happy, but she was game. That much I could tell from the stoic slate of nothing on her face and the absent-minded baton twirl she did behind her back.

"Alright." She said.

Madoka gulped.

"Wonderful!" Mami chimed. "Alright, girls, let's head back down to street-level and see if we can pick anything else up!" She wasn't actually looking at me, but mentally, she was staring bullets into my skull.

 _"_ _You'd better have a damned good explanation,"_  Mami thought at me as she roused the troops.

_"_ _I'm sure you've had to talk plenty of people down from the top of buildings before, Mami."_

_"_ _She's in love, she's upset, and she's wrong. Why are you encouraging her?"_  She asked.

That was correct, and maybe I was just overreacting, but I had a better read on the pulse of the situation than Mami did, or at least I thought so.

 _"_ _She needed to be right about something just now, and she still needs to feel useful,"_  I thought.  _"Hitomi doesn't_ _deal well with any perceived loss of control. She's just as anal as Sayaka, maybe more."_

_"_ _You're talking about them like they're puppets, and what does Sayaka have to do with this?"_

Right. Thought I was talking to my journal for a bit there. That was a slip-up.

_"_ _That's, uh... well—"_

_"_ _Never mind that,"_  Mami said, butting into my thoughts.  _"_ _A witch hunt takes hours, Akemi-san. What the hell are you thinking?"_

This, I had a cogent answer for, as I was a snoop. I'd spent some extra-curricular time tracking the movements of the witches in the city. Interestingly, the Hitomi's contract variation was causing some major alterations in their typical migration patterns. Charlotte, as it happened, was going through some strange existential crisis for some reason, and was taking refuge in a nonstandard place. At least for her.

_"_ _We'll want to check by the baseball stadium."_

_"_ _And how is it you arrived at that?"_  Mami asked.

 _"_ _Surveys, physics, statistics, a little bit of calculus,"_  I thought.

_"_ _And I'm sure there's a reason you didn't tell us right away."_

Yeah, there was. Because I didn't want to seem like I knew too much. Because I didn't want to fuck up this timeline before I knew all I needed to know about it. Because, in the big rock candy mountains, the jails are made of tin, and you can walk right out again as soon as you are in.

 _"_ _More calculous,"_  I thought.  _"_ _Really obnoxiously hard calculus."_

**TO BE CONTINUED**

_A/N: This took a long time to publish mostly because it's actually less than half of what I currently have written. I had intended to hit a few specific major points in this chapter, but it just kept getting longer and longer, so I needed to split it up. The good news is the wait for the next chapter probably won't be very long. Probably._


End file.
